Mass Affected
by TheJackinati275
Summary: This is a alternate universe story where humanity develops certain technologies, then discovers the Prothean archives and adapts but does not outright adopt everything about the Mass Effect, so expect differences from the Cannon systems alliance.
1. Prologue 1: By steps and measures

Mass Affected

Disclaimer: Mass Effect owned by EA games and Bioware. Everything else either comes from my head or I have borrowed from ideas already in mainstream science.

Lockheed Martin is a company that I in no way own, because if I did I would force them to make me battle tanks and C-130's to conquer the world with!

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is also in no way owned be my, because if it was I would summon forth an army of AI minions!

Author's Note: Mass Affected, basically this is a Story where humanity develops certain technologies, then discovers the Prothean archives and adapts but does not outright adopt everything about the Mass Effect, so expect differences from the Cannon systems alliance.

To those of you who like Errant Effect, this story will be quite different yet similar as well. The history is different and Mars has the Prothean archives, yet advanced Laser technology will exist.

I shall present this Chapter in my own experimental way (with the event's either being told through the P.O.V of a news reporter or by events played out by OC characters), as I have grown tired of reading the usual format of the timelines over and over again on this site (hence the experimental part)… so please do give me feedback on what you think of my experimental writing style. What I hope this does is to give people a more personal feeling to the events that will eventually lead up to the Discovery of the Prothean ruins and then hopefully by the next.

If you do not like timelines however than you can just skip this part.

* * *

Prologue1: By steps and measures until we reach Mars (2019-2055 A.D)

* * *

2019 A.D: June (Armour development part 1)

"NASA has today discovered a new way of making Aerogel with an extremely high strength and high insulative qualities that are far superior to previously manufactured Aerogels on the market… NASA plans to make use of this material as a catcher material for micro-meteorites on future research projects"

* * *

2022 A.D: January (Fission energy part 1)

"China has praised at the construction of its first Thorium powered nuclear reactor. The reactor has slightly eased power strains across the country and it is hoped that China seeks to alleviate its usage of fossil fuels by subsequently swapping over to Thorium power generation. Amongst the benefits of Thorium is the fact that a reactor powered by Thorium cannot meltdown and the waste produced is far less long lived nor as hazardous as the waste products produced by other fissile materials"

* * *

2026 A.D: March (Fusion energy part 1)

Rudolph Benneker sighed tiredly, he had recently emigrated from South Africa, originally he had been a theoretical physicist there but the rapidly destabilising political situation forced Rudolph and his family to move abroad to Europe.

Rudolph hated the late night shifts for Lockheed Martin, but they brought in a good salary with which Rudolph could provide for his family of four.

-Beep-

Rudolph quickly scratched his chin before he raised his eyes from the keyboard to the screen of his computer and he sat in awe at the numbers that he was seeing… it was beyond anything that he had seen before.

"My god, Daniel you must see this… am I going mad or is this fusion? Daniel?"

Turning his head Rudolph saw that his colleague, Daniel Finn was sound asleep with his head on his bench and a cup of stale coffee held in his left hand. Annoyed at his colleague, Rudolph prodded Daniel repeatedly until his head drifted upwards and his eyes opened slowly.

"I'm awake dammit I'm awake… what is it?"

Rudolph sighed before issuing his retort. "See this…" Rudolph pointed his finger to his computer screen to a set of data which Daniel's eyes followed and read up and down. "You see what I am getting at right… it isn't just me but do we actually have the first case of a sustained fusion reaction, not one that is energy prohibitive!"

Daniel's eyes checked and rechecked the data repeatedly before he turned his head to look into Rudolph's eyes.

"Bloody hell, Rudolph my friend… we have struck gold. We will surely get the Nobel Prize for this!"

Rudolph quickly fumbled in his chair as he skidded the four wheeled chair through the office room before he reached the telephone through which he dialled the 'head-guy' in charge of the 'Reactor'.

"Rufus… I know this is late… yes but you have to listen to this. We have fusion sir you have to come quick"

* * *

2028 A.D: December (Fusion energy part 2)

Rudolph could scarcely believe it, the seeds of his discovery where beginning to sow fruit as he sat on the couch with his ecstatic family, it took him some effort to shut up his children as he switched through the channels of his television.

"Lockheed Martin has just released news of their first planned fully functional fusion reactor in France to be fully functional by 2036, well in time to assist with the already power-starved France which has lost large portions of its reliable power sources with the shutting down of multiple nuclear reactors from the past decade. Will Lockheed Martin deliver where others have failed before? Only time will tell"

At that Maureen Benneker grasped her husband in a tight hug before giving him a kiss on the cheek.

"Honey you have done it, reliable power for everyone!"

Rudolph sat with high hopes for humanity and the future of mankind.

* * *

2029 A.D: January (Mars mission part 1)

Daniel sat watching his television to see what was on the news channel.

"Setbacks to budgetary funding has delayed the planned Martian expedition by a further six years. Construction of the first module of the Martian vessel was originally slated to be released during June of 2027, but the module is only 80 percent completed with another four modules either in planning or at the beginning stages of construction"

Daniel threw his cup of coffee to his apartment wall before swearing up a storm.

"You fucking government tossers… why the fuck don't you get us the fuck to Mars you cunts instead of squabbling over your fucking dick sizes and land grabs!"

-Beep-

Daniel quickly grasped his mobile phone and tore it out of his pockets with great force and anger before he tried his calm his anger enough to answer his phone.

"Yes who is this?"

"It is Rudolph, have you heard about the cutbacks to the Mars mission?"

Daniel sighed before speaking into the phone. "Yes, I was just swearing up a storm not a moment ago. I swear my landlord could have heard me!"

Rudolph gave a chuckle before responding back. "Me too, my wife gave me the angry look when she saw that the children were not five meters away from my swears!"

* * *

2032 A.D: February (Laser technology part 1)

Western Australian Institute of Technology (WAIT)

Director Gerard McKinnon swatted at the buzzing flies that swarmed his position before taking a deep breath and turning his head to face the gleaming white pod that lay out on the horizon in the harsh west Australian desert.

After more than six years of development and $750 Million dollars AU of investment, the Polaris LaWS was finally finished roughly three months ago and was now in a few scarce moments about to finally be given its trial run against both drones and lightly armoured ground vehicles.

The Polaris consists of six tubes and inside of each tube consists an array of three 30 kilowatt lasers, All of which combined equals an approximate wattage of roughly 540 kilowatts. With the approximate range as being stated as being about 6 to 8 kilometres give or take. The Polaris was designed to fire in a flashing five-sequence 10 millisecond burst that would help to lower the energy consumption as well as to save up on preliminary power usage. Behind the Pod sits the external power source of the specially manufactured Carbon-nanotube battery pack that could provide an extremely large amount of power on short notice and was built to have a very quick recharge rate in mind, but as of now the tech had not yet been tested.

Admiral Dowell Gareth of the Royal Australian Navy was sent over alongside a host of thirty other military and naval officials to oversee the prototype weapon in action.

Gerard McKinnon began to walk up to the large podium and began to recite his memorised speech in his head before he gathered up the courage to speak to the assembled crowd.

"Today shall hopefully be a historic day not only for Australia but for the world, many years ago Lasers were seen as a quint but fantastical weapon that would only exist in the realm of fantasy. Those people were wrong, in the 1990's and the 2000's it was discovered that you not only could you use a laser as a weapon… but you could use it well… however the problem has forever remained about the generation of such a large amount of power required to generate such a powerful beam. Today with the proliferation of Nano-Carbon based batteries and ultra-light and ultra-heat resistant materials we can give rise to a newer and newer generation of Laser weapons. That is what I hope we shall see today… That this Laser shall promote not only peace, but to inspire a future generation to dream of bigger and better contraptions of the likes of which we today could never dream of building. Without further ado I present the Polaris Laser Weapon System, may it succeed our expectations"

At that Gerard raised his glass of champagne to the gathered crowd of military men whom each raised their glasses in a toast.

Behind Gerard stood a television screen that showed the view of the main sensor which showed a black and white silhouette of the landscape.

Roughly twenty seconds later the radar scope equipped above the Polaris tracked down its first target, a drone roughly 5x7 metres large and approximately 6 kilometres away from the laser dish. The human operator who was sitting on a seat nearby was guiding the and pointing the Polaris out to its target as it was rapidly approaching… at the 5.5km mark the operator fingered the trigger and the array of lasers pointed themselves directly within a 3cm radius hole which within a few brief milliseconds cut through the drone as though it were made of paper.

After hours of further testing the military officials, mainly those on the naval side of things began to offer up their wishes of having one aboard their own ships as a cheap and efficient point defence system that would hopefully be a much cheaper alternative to the already aging Phalanx system in the long run.

* * *

2032 A.D: July (Martian mission part 2)

"Module one, the first of five planned modules has been sent into orbit via chemical rockets. The plan is to assemble the modules one by one similar to how they built the International Space Station"

* * *

2033 A.D: April (Armour development part 2)

"Yesterday, a group of researchers at the MIT have discovered a new object to metamaterials science. This material is called Transpari-Ferrum and this new product allows for extremely strong, light and durable glass-like panes that have the strengths of Iron whilst also being fully transparent and shatter-proof. The strength of the glass and the relative light weight and durability is due to the structure of the 'glass laminate', with panes of Iron structured approximately 10 nanometres thick that have been arranged atom by atom into a near-perfect straight structure that is then bonded to a 50 nanometre thick pane of Silicon that is then bonded to another pane of 10 nanometre thick iron atoms followed on by another 50 nanometre thick pane of Silicon and so on until there are several million laminated pane. What is the average asking price for one square meter of this material? 21.8 Million dollars US said head researcher Philip Morris, so do not expect your car windows to be replaced anywhere in the near future with this new miracle material"

* * *

2039 A.D: November (Martian mission part 3)

"Spending has slowly trickled back to the Martian mission as governments across the world wish to send the first colonists to Mars by 2055"

* * *

2041 A.D: May (Martian mission part 4)

"Of the four modules left of the Martian mission, module 2 is at 30% completion whilst module 3 is at 18% completion. Module 4 is still in the planning stages and is not slated to begin construction until 2045"

* * *

2043 A.D: September (Armour development part 3)

Brian Lewis and his fire-team of three other 'exo-recons' were sent careening out of the dropship at a steady speed. At the 7'500ft mark Brian Lewis pulled his parachute and open and braced as the air whooshed through his body as he slowly began to descend down to the ground.

Brian was happy that his squad were not dispersed much by the winds and they quickly regrouped together in less than two hours.

Brian could not help but fall in love with his exo-suit as it allowed him to carry four times the load of a normal soldier yet he felt no strain on his back at all as the suit dispersed the weight down to the ground evenly, this meant that exo-squads could remain in an area for a far longer duration and continuously rain down the lead.

Another benefit Brian noticed was that the exo-suits helped to absorb a large portion of the recoil, enough that Brian felt comfortable not only carrying but also using the LMG all day long and without suffering from strain or other similar things like he did back in Boot-camp.

Brian knew that the future for the military was to have every other grunt equipped with an exo-suit, it was a remarkable marvel of engineering that would no doubt not only save lives but would reduce the already considerable strain that a soldier could face in a battlefield.

* * *

2048 A.D: July (Armour development part 4)

Matthew Cubbins stood tall in front of the General before he read out the data that was on his vid-pad.

"General with this Aerogel-composite underlay we can increase the survival odds of our soldiers by a projected 59% over the standard backing used under the ceramic plates used in today's battle armours. Trauma on the battlefield can be greatly reduced and at a minimal cost too"

Matthew saw as the General smiled before he spoke up.

"Get me some numbers. I want to make sure that this underlay is going to be as cheap as you say it will be… and if it is, this will be the greatest military breakthrough of this half century"

Matthew Cubbins could not help but smile with glee, he would be a very rich man.

* * *

2055 A.D: March (Martian mission part 5)

Eugene Short could not believe it… he was one of the 23 chosen astronauts and engineers… he shook in awe as he was strapped in alongside the other multinational crewmembers, some of whom were Russian and Chinese and Australian and American… everyone was in the same state as he was… awestruck.

The expanding combusting gasses of the chemical rocket engine propelled the shuttle flying forth with enough speed to reach the 'escape velocity' and leave the Earth.

After what felt like hours Eugene noticed that he felt weightless but the restraints kept him attached to his seat. The shuttle had reached the docking port of Module four, which was positioned near the back end of the vessel.

When the Space controller gave the all-clear Eugene removed himself from his restraints and he as well as the other crewmembers were left to float around.

It took Eugene several frantic efforts before he learned how to move himself towards the handle-bars that lead to the lever that would open the door to the Martian module.

As Eugene began to pull himself upwards through the handle-bars he saw through the shuttle window the expanse into the void of space... space.

He knew that somewhere out there through a two years journey would rest Mars, the Martian body that was red and barren… it would become his new home.

* * *

What do you think of my experiment?


	2. Prologue 2: Relay 314 Incident

Mass Affected

Disclaimer: Mass Effect owned by EA games and Bioware. Everything else either comes from my head or I have borrowed from ideas already in mainstream science.

Dillon Aero is not in anyway owned or associated with me, otherwise i would be chopping down forests with minigun's.

This is an alternate universe story where humanity develops certain technologies, then discovers the Prothean archives and adapts but does not outright adopt everything about the Mass Effect, so expect differences from the Cannon systems alliance.

Author's Note: Okay, I am sorry to the fellow multinational peoples whom make up this site, but if Google translate has somehow screwed around with your language, please give me a reply and a caption of what you want changed and then a replacement sentence of what should have been written.

Oh and remember how inaccurate your first Mass effect assault rifles were in Mass Effect 1... well that is just an example of how inaccurate Humanities first weapons will be, you know those guns where you could shoot like 100 bullets and only like 5 of them would hit. (Standard Turian military units get the same kind of inaccurate weapons too though)

Oh and this story will be a little dark around the edges, with political prisoner run eezo mines that are kept maintained by both the opressive Chinese military and with PMC mercenary groups enforcing that independent companies private eezo mining quoatas are met, so this story will be more muddied than with the canon Mass Effect story.

Reviews:

**Guest: **_Well finally someone thinks about adapting the Mass Effect tech with whatever tech Humanity creates instead of ignoring it. I swear that every writer that does an alternate Humanity ignores the ME tech because of their own selfish pride and desire to show Humanities superiority. In reality, would you pass on studying alien tech that is literally next door or would you ignore it because it wasn't made by Humans. I would study it and adapt it into our tech to strengthen and improve Humanity, but those prideful idiots ignore it because they use the "Reaper trap" as an excuse. I know the Reapers want us to develop in a certain direction, but we can change that direction and ME tech won't cause our downfall. I'm sorry for the rant, but their are too little people on this cite that has the same idea as you and instead wants to prove that something is better than what is already established. Thank you for coming up with an adapting tech story and I hope I didn't scare you off._

Nope, you have not scared me off yet Guest. I agree with your overall statement wholeheartedly, even if governments or powers knew it to be a trap, they would still devote time and resources to discover it. After all how do you counter the reapers by not studying the technology on which they rely upon?.

**edboy4926:** _Looks interesting._

You like those words a lot don't you edboy… not that I can blame you because I tell people the same thing too, 'This story is interesting-that story is interesting' blah blah blah ;)

* * *

Prologue 2: From out the dark and into the light (2057- 2075 A.D)

2057 A.D: Mid-August (Prothean archives discovery 1)

Eugene started off his day like every other day began, by ingesting liquid food and drink through a straw… then came the daily exercise regime to combat the effects of zero-gravity on the human body. The day would have continued as normal if it were not for the loud knocking noised he heard against the gym door.

Eugene quickly stopped what he was doing and rushed or rather floated as quickly as he could to reach the door before he depressed the side-door button switch which caused a hssss sound to rush into the room.

"Датчик не работает... он барахлит" *1 (see down bottom of page to view the approximate English translation)

Eugene couldn't handle it anymore. The stress of living within a contained metal box surrounded by the constant ever-present fear of being sucked into the void mixed in with that Russian's language and Eugenes frustration at not understanding what he was saying caused a bolt to crack in Eugene's mind.

"Jeremy, whatever the fuck does that mean in English? Huh, I am not sure if you understand this or not but I don't speak Russian!"

At that the Russian astronaut Yeremey Vladislavovich's face lit up with barely held back anger.

"I said that the sensor, LIDAR sensor is… knowt working… it is very uh… odd thing happen to the screen"

Eugene sighed, if the damned sensor had gone haywire he was going to go ka-put and start bashing his head into the nearest wall present.

Eugene floated alongside Yeremey whom was also called Jeremy to be easier to pronounce to the non-Russians crew-members aboard. Once the two astronauts were face to face with the Sensor Eugene began to do a quick check-up.

Eugene fiddled around with several interfaces before he settled down to the preliminary planetary Lidar sweep. That was when Eugene spotted out the odd interference that Yeremey was talking about.

"Hmm, what the fuck is going on with the readings… it seems to suggest that there is a permanent structure located a few klicks south of our planned landing position. Surely these readings are a false positive Jeremy. Do not start spreading out the word about this false positive to the others until we actually go and investigate it on the surface… you understand me?"

"I am Russian, not dumb. There is plenty of difference… I understand you perfectly and will not say more on that subject to the other members, at least not till we check it out first. Call me dumb again however..." Yeremey visually flexed his muscles in front of Eugene in an attempt to convey his strength to Eugene, which worked slightly because Yeremey was larger and stronger than Eugene "Then we will have problems... Da?"

Eugene felt that it would be a sound idea to apologize, the conditions of space were not very nice and having angry crew members aboard who were physically stronger than him was not a sound idea.

"Look Jeremy, i am sorry... the whole fucking place has me on edge, i am afraid to a paranoid extent of being vented out into space in some unforeseen accident. It's a damn triumph to even take a piss in the morning!... what i mean to say is that i am sorry for acting out earlier"

Yeremey lightened up before speaking back. "I feel the same way... i am anxious to be off on Mars the red planet... to explore the surface"

* * *

2057 A.D: Late-August (Prothean archives discovery 2)

Yeremey could not believe it... the view of what he saw was beyond his comprehension. Two minutes later the view dawned on him.

_'Actual, verifiable proof of alien life. We are not alone'_ mentally remarked Yeremey. A decayed stone structure underneath a thin veil of seemingly well preserved metal that was just scarcely being corroded away by the vast storms of Mars.

Yeremey could not help but grin in silence at what the view of the site had caused the multinational crew to say through their radios on their suits.

"By god we have proof... fucking proof of alien life!" shouted out Eugene through his suit's inbuilt radio-suite

"Wài xīng rén cúnzài de..." shouted out the Chinese astronaut Lau Shen, whom was the martian mission's main engineer and the technical 'go-to guy' for all things robotic and computer related.

"Aliens... Ich wusste es!" spoke a shocked Isabella Schedl, the only German astronaut on the martian mission.

"Kuso!" remarked Isao Okubo, the only Japanese astronaut present on the martian mission.

"I knew it, aliens are out there and now we have definitive proof!" spoke Oscar Landor, the only Australian astronaut on the martian mission.

When Yeremey was sure that the whole group had let out all that they had to say, he spoke into his suit's inbuilt radio-suite to issue his statement.

"Well then... should we not send word back to earth? it would take 15-25 minutes give or take to relay the message back to earth... and in the fifty-so minutes it would take to receive our orders from earth... we could be exploring the site. Even if they were to tell us off who is to stop us from examining the site?"

Eugene spoke his reply through the radio.

"You are an ingenious bastard you know that... and devious. It's why i am starting to like you. You know Yeremey, we should explore the ruins promptly first... you know to 'ensure' that this actually is an 'alien' site and not some 'hoax', maybe bring back a plasma gun to show off to the brass!"

At that Oscar Landar quickly walked into the conversation with his full support. "I agree, those tossers back on earth will lord it all over us. Hell they might try to steal the site away from us for 'confidential' reasons when what they fucking mean is that they are going to steal this shit away from us and devise new ways of killing ourselves. Fucking idiots!"

Yeremey was a little curious when he spotted a small cylindrical device made out of metal. Yeremey decided to grasp the object within his hands and he was surprised when a large orange coloured board of light appeared from the object. In his shock Yeremey threw the object which then skittered through the rocky martian surface.

"What the fuck was that Jeremy..."

"A hologram of some sort... i think"

Unexpectedly, Lau Shen quickly rushed forwards before grabbing the alien device within his hands before examining it. "I think i might be able to search through the device... with some modifications"

"Then do that and as quickly as you can, we are on the brink of the most important human discovery in history!"

* * *

2057 A.D: Late-August to Early-September (Omni-tool discovery)

"This is the audio log of astronaut Lau Shen, dated 28th August 2057. Here begin's my attempts at describing the device before me"

"Yesterday i discovered that the device utilizes some form of hard-light to form a sort of holographic interface... a crude term to be sure since in the general term it cannot be holographic as that is to describe a three dimensional projection and is not used to describe a solid object. But for the common man i will make the literary sacrifice and call it a holographic terminal for ease. How is such a small device generating this hard-light interface... that is a question for another day."

"This is the audio log of astronaut Lau Shen, dated 29th August 2057. Here begin's another day of my attempt at unlocking this alien device"

"I noticed that the device once activated gives off fluctuations of gravity. I have observed no ill effects from the device and can not find a trace of any emitted radiation signatures... what is causing this phenomena?... perhaps this phenomenon is to explain the reason for the hard-light to emerge from the device. For now i have no idea how it works. That said however i strongly believe that the device is similar to being some sort of hand held computer... if it is i may be able to pry some information from it, provided that the data is in a form that our current devices can read... more to follow in my next report"

"This is the audio log of astronaut Lau Shen, dated 1st September 2057. Today i made an astonishing breakthrough which i will detail in my report..."

"This breakthrough came about when i carefully welded a tiny hole inside the device and connected a super-conductive wire into the device which went to my portable computer... i discovered that the alien device had a code that though different from our binary code began to adapt to our code... how i do not know but it slowly over time began to translate the alien text into our texts... Is this device an AI of some sort? perhaps this is just an adaptive code that is more advanced than ours, who knows... Regardless i managed to translate some of what was written onto the device and i have now come into the possession of certain information which i will be beaming back in carefully encrypted messages to the Chinese space center on a particular frequency which i will not discuss here. This information will be vital to China and i feel that it is imperative that China receive the technology before we lose face to Japan and America. End audio log"

"This is the audio log of astronaut Lau Shen, dated 3rd September 2057. I am happy to say that no one is wise to my deception, everyone is too busy exploring the ruins to check up on me..."

"I now know of the material that causes the effects on gravity... is a rare material that, when subjected to an electrical current, releases dark energy which can be used to form fields of mass, similar to the deflector shields as seen on sci-fi films but operating on a slightly different basis... unfortunately the technology only works against kinetic impacts so theoretically Laser beams will break through and penetrate through the armour of your said space vessel. I must admit that i was quite surprised that the aliens would have no theoretical defense against theoretical alien laser beams, perhaps more exploration through the device will yield more data. End audio log"

"This is the audio log of astronaut Lau Shen, dated 5th September 2057"

"Allow yourself to imagine how shocked i was to discover yesterday to find that the Cro-Magnon people of earth were being examined by the aliens which i have discovered were called Prothean's... furthermore what if i told you that the aliens left behind a cache of technology which we call a Prothean cache. Today we discovered that inside the large Prothean site that there was a large quantity of the mass-affecting material as well as planetary data of Mars revealing another small source of this mass-affecting material which could potentially be mined in the future... This will be the page through which the world will advance countless years... i may not have known much about the mass-affecting material in my previous audio log. But i now know that faster than light technology is now possible and that furthermore that Charon is not infact a planetary mass but is rather the debris surrounding a site which the Prothean's call a mass relay"

* * *

2057 A.D: December (A gift to earth)

Eugene could not believe it... he would not be surprised if the actions that he and the rest of the astronauts were about to do would border onto the region of pure political anathema back on earth and would no doubt raise one hell of a shit storm... but if this old Prothean vessel worked and if they brought back the small quantity of data that they managed to obtain from the Prothean cache... then Humanity could become an interstellar society within a few years or a few decades depending on how things went.

"Lau Shen, are you sure this vessel will work?"

"Yes it will and with the Prothean data and this mass affecting material that we have stored in the cargo bay, humanity will achieve so much in such a short amount of time"

Eugene sighed before he shouted out to everyone on board.

"So then are we ready?"

To which everyone replied in their own native languages with "Ready".

_'Humanity will advance so much'_ were Eugene's thoughts as the vessel flew through the atmosphere and he saw as a blue-flash emerged from the vessel. No less than forty seconds later and the Prothean vessel was outside of Earth's orbit.

Eugene quickly grasped one of the scavenged radio recievers from the Martian vessel and spoke into it.

"Prothean vessel to earth... requesting clearance to land, preferably in friendly soil"

Moments later, Eugene recieved a reply.

"So this is the Alien vessel you guys discovered eh?... you know you've raised a real shit-storm here and if it wasn't for that high-tech gear you guys are hauling i would have all your asses in a sling for this... approach the designated area"

* * *

2058 A.D: February (Omni-tool industry part 1)

Lau Shen sat out on the glass pier in front of the Chinese Embassy in Geneva, Switzerland that was overlooking the cityscape. After a moment of searching through the room he found the person of whom he was arranged to meet... an attractive Chinese woman if he did say so himself and he stood up tall with his slim suitcase in his right hand. Inside of his suitcase was his hastily assembled copy of an Omni-tool as well as a small data-drive filled with data stolen from the Prothean cache.

Lau Shen could not actually believe it. Back on Mars he had wiped out all mentions on how to create Omni-tools from the archives whilst he himself kept the original copy of the data. Now it was time that he returned such a crucial piece of information back to the Chinese government. China would vastly gain much face through such an action and China could potentially corner in the market for the new miracle product... even better was that the stockpiles of the then currently useless mass-affecting material now called by the term Element Zero or eezo for short was now able to find a use.

"Mr Shen, upon handing me the data i will wire in the money into your account... do not double cross us , or they will have to pull out your body near the Macau shoreline, half rotten and with a bullet through the cranium"

The threat did not go unnoticed on Lau Shen.

* * *

2058 A.D: June (Formation of the Eezo-Aerospace Industry)

Kevin Moore could not believe just how far technology could go... but for however much having the Element-Zero as a strategic resource was great for Political maneuvering... it currently had no use to either the Aerospace industry or even for military applications... at least not yet. In the case of the aerospace industry they did not even have the technology to outfit space vessels. It is not a simple task to simply turn from developing small modules pieces at a time to a newer and possibly riskier venture of arming and armoring a space vessel that relies on a mysterious material that is still being learned about, nor to even create the mass-effect drive... but with time and research, solutions to the currently addressed problems may soon be fixed.

Kevin Moore was the head of the newly established Eezo-Aerospace Industry commonly known as (E-AI).

* * *

2058 A.D: July (Formation of the Guan Yu Omni-tool Corporation)

"Today the world has embraced the First ever product to be produced by the new Guan Yu Omni-tool Corporation. It is amazing to note that only a month ago the company had released news of their new product... how did they release this new product in such a fast amount of time and how is the product made? We have no idea but should you care about the trivialities when the Omni-tool is capable of changing the face of how people work and interact with one another. Now for a word from our sponsors"

"Omni-tool... are you complete without one? get yours today for $6500.00 U.S"

* * *

2061 A.D: April (Attack of the eezo-aerospace industry)

Kevin reminisced back on the events of the previous day.

_"Please Mr Moore, you must provide transport for me and my family to America... do this and i will provide you with the data files"_

_Kevin sighed before he returned his reply back through his mobile phone._

_"Listen, i will arrange for a Mr Mimura Otaki to escort you and your family... you will provide him with the data and audio files and i will provide you and your family assylum in the United States... am i clear!"_

_"Yes Mr Moore"_

"Mr Moore, i have your data sir"

Kevin turned away from his broken thoughts to see the face of Mimura, his assistant and left hand man.

Kevin held out his hand to grasp the two thin objects, one was a data-drive and the other was a flimsy video-pad.

China was reigning in the profits by marketing a miracle brand device which they called an Omni-tool. Kevin Moore wanted to find out how these Omni-tools were made, then how to counter-attack the new Chinese super-power by attacking at its purse-strings. The Omni-tool generated an astounding annual 85 billion dollar's U.S every year for the past year and a half... and the profits were being sent on colonization efforts as well as for military research. Finding out how Omni-tools were made would make Kevin's business rich and it would be in America's best interest's if the Chinese lost their sole power in that particular market. Kevin decided that he would be the missionary who stole the secret of silk from China way back in the sixth century A.D, only Kevin would be stealing the secrets to their high tech devices... Kevin would hamper their ability to produce funds and thus aid the in the American effort to be the sole interstellar space power.

Kevin sat at his desk listening through the documents that he had managed to smuggle through from the Chinese government.

"This is the audio log of astronaut Lau Shen, dated 28th August 2057. Here begin's my attempts at describing the device before me"

"Yesterday i discovered that the device utilizes some form of hard-light to form a sort of holographic interface... a crude term to be sure since in the general term it cannot be holographic as that is to describe a three dimensional projection and is not used to describe a solid object. But for the common man i will make the sacrifice and call it a holographic terminal for ease. How is such a small device generating this hard-light interface... that is a question for another day."

With the knowledge that he had the data in his hands, Kevin turned around and began to dismiss Mimura from his room.

"Mimura thank you, you are dismissed for today... expect to see double the amount of pay in your paycheck"

* * *

2062 A.D: January (Attempts at first mass-accelerator rifle)

-Classified United States Army Testing Range-

Pvt Derek Flores was surprised at being given the honor of test firing the new space-age eezo-activated mass accelerator rifle model MA-1, there were three MA-1's laid out on the table and each one was given a different coating of paint on the frame of the weapon.

"Pvt Derek Flores, before you will be handling your new prototype weapon's, we must first give you the basic background behind each weapon."

The unnamed military scientist gestured to one of the weapons.

"The average tungsten 'red' model MA-1 has a cyclic-firing rate of 380 rounds per minute. This weapon is a sledgehammer that is designed to fire 2mm wide, 0.038 grain projectile out to 3 kilometres per second. This gives us an approximate amount of force measuring at about 10800 joules, though this is dependent largely on the approximate length of the shaved projectile. I am going to go out on a limb and say that you probably have no idea what all that techno-bable means, 10800 joules is like getting hit by 3 and a half .308 rounds at once."

The unnamed military scientist then pointed to the next mass accelerator that was painted white.

"This is your average DU 'white' model MA-1, it has the same cyclic rate at 380 rounds per minute. It also fires at the same 3 kilometer per second velocity, but due to the minutely different density, a 0.036 grain projectile it will hit with an approximate force of 10700 joules. The difference is that this metal is pyrophoric upon hitting a dense object, so it will burst into intensely hot flames, and possibly even turn into a molten liquid upon hitting an armoured structure."

The unnamed military scientist took in a quick breath before pointing to the last mass accelerator that was painted blue.

"Lastly, we have the average Zirconium-alloy 'blue' MA-1. Thanks to the low density of the metal, this weapon suffer's in kinetic output, but can make up for it by having a sufficiently higher cyclic rate at 900 rounds per minute. If you are used to the 7.62x51mm round, then you may enjoy shooting this one. It fires a 0.0126 grain projectile out to 3 kilometres per second. That equal's to about 3600-3700 joules. I have heard from other soldier's who took the same test that they found this one to be a real joy to shoot. Zirconium-alloy projectiles may have less density, but when fired at 3 kilometres per second, they light up like tracers due to being pyrophoric under friction, i heard that they might even get banned under the Hague convention as an expansive 'round'."

The unnamed military scientist then took a quick cough before giving minute details and tips to Derek.

"When you are shooting the red and white model's, expect some serious recoil. Those 'eezo' recoil dampener's only stop so much force in a given moment, so expect inaccuracy in a sustained burst. With the blue model, shoot it in controlled and short bursts because this weapon overheats fastest out of all the MA model's when under sustained firing. The 'eezo' recoil dampeners do wonders for the blue version, so you can expect to hit targets much more accurately and reliably then with the 'red' and 'white' models."

From the corner of the room, an unnamed sergeant gave a curt speech.

"Well soldier, you ready for the test or what?"

Pvt Derek stood up as straight as possible before saluting with his right hand to his forehead. "Sir yes sir!"

"Good, begin the test"

Derek lifted up the red-painted MA-1 and began to look down through the iron-sights of the new weapon.

Derek saw as his first metal silhouette target popped out through a sand-bag wall. Derek proceeded to fire a three round burst similar to what he would have done with his M6k model 6.8mm assault rifle.

He thought that the firing would be the same, he was wrong. The recoil of the weapon even reduced via assistance from the eezo core was still large, and thus his shots were skittering around carelessly.

Burst firing the 'red' MA-1 with any degree of skill would be extremely difficult and the only advisable way to use this weapon in a battlefield scenario would be to put the gun on full-auto bursts like one would adopt with an LMG, by firing rounds in the general area of the spotted enemy position and aiming for hits from indirect firing.

Derek changed his firing position accordingly and began to crouch down low, using the ground to prop his weapon steady. With a new found resolve, Derek sighted down at his metal silhouette target and fired again.

This time the effects of the sustained burst of fire were more pronounced. For every 5 shots that were fired, four would miss and the one that hit did large amounts of damage to the target. The tungsten projectiles went through the sandbags and about a kilometer past them before embedding themselves in the desert sands. Unfortunately, due to the extreme recoil, all positive effect's of such extreme firepower was diminished by the inherent inaccuracy of the weapon.

The 'white' MA-1 performed similarly, however when the rounds struck against the metal silhouette target, the depleted uranium projectile turned into a liquid jet of molten metal that spurted out of the back end of the target.

When Derek got his hands on the 'blue' MA-1 model, the performance was a far cry from the last two. When Derek fired it for the first time, he was shocked by how light the weapon seemed to perform, but the damage done to the target's was still comparable to the previous projectiles, but with the added bonus of far increased accuracy and less recoil. When the Zirconium projectiles were fired, they began to heat up and the result was not to dissimilar to armour-piercing incendiary rounds.

The tests continued on for several days... what was found out about the weapons was that although the weapons could do a large amount of damage, the practical effectiveness of the weapon was limited by the lack of an efficient recoil suppression system and by the relatively low fire rate of the guns as well as the amount of weapon heat generated.

The Government later decided to quit production of Tungsten and Depleted uranium ammunition blocks, whilst the Zirconium ammunition blocks were given the green light for production.

Standard firearms would remain in permanent usage for the long foreseeable future, due to the demands and political bribes by gun companies to keep their weapons and ammunition in commission, and by the fact that the mass accelerator weapons would only fill a niche role with the current technological limits limiting the effectiveness of those weapons.

* * *

2062 A.D: April (First eezo-fighters)

"The American's and the Chinese have both stunned the world by the simultaneous release of the first military eezo-fighters, currently they are built for land engagements but it is planned that both countries will quickly add space fighting to their resume. The Chinese TX-Typhoon is stated to have higher maneuverability and speed whilst the Hornet is stated to wield a higher amount of missiles and weapons systems for a slower cruising speed and less maneuverability"

* * *

2063 AD: March (The merger)

"Today on the 8th of March 2063, Lockheed Martin, Boeing and General Dynamics have signed a twelve year 200 Billion dollar merger for the development of advanced space aeronautics and defensive weaponry"

* * *

2064 A.D: November (First hand-held kinetic barrier)

"Today the military world rejoices when the first man-portable kinetic barrier projector was first successfully used in a practice environment. The only thing to do is to go forward with the plan and give it to everybody says military correspondent Dan Morough. How will this shield affect the way soldiers do battle?, we shall have to find out"

* * *

2065 A.D: June (The first frigate)

"Today the world bears witness to the USA's first Eezo-powered Frigate, at roughly 200 meters long and lined with Titanium sheeting. This U.S.S Anaconda will be Humanities first interstellar vessel capable of travelling past the speed of light... Check channel 94 later tonight for more details"

* * *

2065 A.D: June (Successful launch run)

"Today the U.S.S Anaconda completed her first tour of duty by activating the Charon relay, which caused Charon to break apart into billions of pieces... what lays outside of the Relay. We shall not know until the U.S has completed its second Frigate the U.S.S Hydra which is sceduled for completion by 2067"

* * *

2066 A.D: July (Construction of carrier class vessel begins)

"The USA after the success of their first frigate are beginning the eager task of creating the first space carrier by 2073. as of now she is planned to reach a span of 850 metres long... the problem has arisen that the amount of eezo required for such a large ship will severely hamper the current remaining supplies of eezo"

* * *

2066 A.D: September (The mass accelerator conundrum)

-Undisclosed Science Lab-

"General Travis, we have told you repeatedly that we have not yet been able to mass produce our own version of the Prothean mass accelerators, either for the broadside cannons or for the alleged main gun of the supposed Prothean dreadnaughts... however we have managed to create a newer version of the accelerators which require two-thirds of the barrel length and thus require less eezo to utilize... In short General... we can create the mass-accelerator version of a carronade, a shorter barreled weapon that could potentially fire a 65 kilogram metal slug out at extremely high speeds with the drawback of having a heavily reduced effective range. These carronades will reduce the strain on eezo consumption which as we all know is extremely rare and must be used in limited amounts or we will risk being unable to field anymore space vessels"

General Travis sighed "Whatever you have to do, do it... we cannot risk using up all the available eezo sources... manufacture as many as you can and begin replacing theguns on the U.S.S Hydra with these 'carronades'... we must reduce the eezo strain anyway that we can"

* * *

2067 A.D: February (Through the relay and into the wider world)

"The U.S.S Hydra has gone through the Mass Relay... several planets were spotted and they will be provided names in the foreseeable future"

"Jon Grissom, how does it feel to be the champion for humanity?"

"Ma'am it feels great... this one action will fuel the expansion of humanity in the likes of which you will never see... just you wait and in twenty years we will be fostering the new golden age of humanity amongst the stars"

"Grissom, before you leave can you atleast tell your viewers what you saw there?"

"I saw a red star... beautiful in its way, the Mass relay stood outside like a shining beacon just beckoning for us to go through, tempting me with the thought of going on further still, but i knew that i had to stop and return the news to you all"

* * *

2067 A.D: December (Mars eezo depletion)

"We have just heard that all the remaining reserves ofnatural eezo on Mars have been depleted... this boasts the question on where to find more eezo?"

* * *

2068 A.D: August (The first cruiser)

"In a stunning display China unveiled their first ever space worthy cruiser called the Sun Tzu, at 500 meters long they dwarf the American Frigates by over 300 meters in length, but the overall limitations to eezo requirements has meant that the Cruiser has remained relatively lightly armed when compared to their American counterparts"

* * *

2069 A.D: July (Chinese colonization edict)

"The Chinese government has issued a new edict promoting the colonization of 'relay planets' before the other western powers are able to gain a foothold"

"There have been further allegations today that the Chinese government may be using this edict to remove 'troublesome' elements to their political party and that they may be using them as human labor sources for the extraction of eezo from the province of New Taiyuan on the planet Shanxi"

* * *

2070 A.D: January (Discourse in Shanxi)

"The Chinese government has issued for the increased colonization of Shanxi by 2073 to reach 100,000 occupants, one quarter of whom will consist of armed forces. China has denied all allegations of slave labour or of the forced removal of dissidents from China"

* * *

2071 A.D: June (Launch of three frigates)

"This year the European Union is proud to present the Frigate H.M.S Resolute and the Frigate U.N.V Judgement. Whilst the Chinese have successfully launched their first Frigate the Huang Di"

* * *

2071 A.D: July (Shipboard fusion generator)

"The merger have generated the first shipboard sized fusion generator in the hopes that it will be fitted to the new carrier class vessel"

* * *

2072 A.D: July (Shipboard Laser Defense System)

"Can the fusion generator provide enough power... yes or no?"

"General Travis, if we push the limits we may be able to push the laser to fire a 250 megawatt ultraviolet frequency laser beam, however the ship would have to remain extremely still in order to hit a target from the advertised 100,000 kilometres distance... we could run the weapon at that setting if we fire in pulse bursts every tenth of a microsecond for 2 milliseconds"

"Then i want you to remove all the mass accelerator cannons on board the vessel, why have useless weight on board the vessel when the Laser does the advertised job and from a greater distance than the main gun"

* * *

2073 A.D: March (First carrier)

"The USA is proud to announce its first carrier class vessel the U.S.S Missouri"

* * *

2157C.E-2075 A.D: June (Relay 314 incident)

"U.S.S Hydra this is Admiral Cheng Wei of the cruiser Sun Tzu, please inform me of your destination and cargo?"

"This is Admiral Ryan Nemitts of the U.S.S Hydra, we are under orders to open up the relay for a brief exploration mission and to search for any new sources of eezo"

"Hold here whilst i relay a message back to earth"

"Very well, holding out"

A moment later Admiral Cheng Wei replied back. "Well then, i have orders to escort you through the relay... orders that come from the head of the Chinese Government"

Admiral Ryan knew why this was happening, the Chinese government did not like having American vessels near Shanxi and he knew why... it was where the Anti-communist citizenry were kept as a source of human labour to work the eezo mines, but what truly sickened Ryan was the fact that there were several groups of PMC's working for certain corporations interested in eezo and had the PMC's kept there to ensure that everything was running well and that all monthly eezo quota's were strictly met. This fact was kept very hush-hush by the American's and several European powers as they were very dependent on obtaining eezo no matter the cost to human lives. The eezo business was a well greased machine kept oiled by everyone's reliance on eezo and functioned on the ground that so long as people ignored the suffering that the business was causing then they would get their desperately needed eezo.

"Admiral we are approaching the Relay... inputting mass now... standing by in 3... 1, 2, 3!"

In a bright blue flash both the U.S.S Hydra and the Sun Tzu where on the opposing side of the relay.

"Sir, LIDAR sweep has a read on something... it is metal and moving but that is all we can tell for now"

Admiral Ryan quickly turned on the Holoscreen and set up an encrypted telecommunications request to the Sun Tzu, which a second later was brought through.

"Admiral Ryan, i take it your LIDAR has said the same thing. Metal objects and moving fast"

Admiral Ryan decided to call it safe and to retreat back through the relay.

In the background Ryan heard one of his ensigns shout out a frantic alert. "LIDAR says incoming at 11,000... 10,000 kilometers and approaching fast"

"Admiral Cheng, i am seriously suggesting that we retreat back to Shanxi through the rela..." Unfortunately the ship was rocked by a kinetic impact... the shield absorbed all of the kinetic energy but she could only take so much strain before she would collapse.

When Admiral Ryan leveled himself upright he quickly finished his sentence to Admiral Cheng.

"Admiral Cheng i want you to go through that relay and i want you to warn earth through whatever means you have... we are staying behind!"

Admiral Cheng saw the forlorn look on Ryans face but did not comment on that.

"I will ensure that humanity will remember your sacrifice, and that we will bear the hammer in your name about our enemies heads!" at that the Admiral quit the transmission and began to lead the cruiser back through the relay"

* * *

**Edited on: 12:33 A.M on 30/04/2015**

Change's:

Did kinetic energy calculations for the mass accelerator weapon's section. I am not good at physics, so i might be very wrong with these calculations.

* * *

*1 Translation section

"Датчик не работает... он барахлит" = The sensor does not work... it acts up (it is acting up)

"Wài xīng rén cúnzài de..." = Aliens... exist

"Aliens... Ich wusste es!" = Aliens... I knew it!

"Kuso!" = Shit!


	3. Chapter 1: To be or not to be?

Mass Affected

Disclaimer: Mass Effect owned by EA games and Bioware. Everything else either comes from my head or I have borrowed from ideas already in mainstream science.

Dillon Aero is not in anyway owned or associated with me, otherwise i would be chopping down forests with minigun's.

This is an alternate universe story where humanity develops certain technologies, then discovers the Prothean archives and adapts but does not outright adopt everything about the Mass Effect. Expect differences from the canon systems alliance.

Reviews:

karthik9: **It is excellent chapter.I look forward to future updates.**

Thank you, it is always nice to hear praise about my work.

S.U: **Sorry that my english is it very good, but i will try to explain. Now i know you need it to put a bunch of eezo in the core to make mass effect field, but i got a better theory. is about you put like 2 or 3 eezo ore ( or sand i don't know ) similar to a Tokamak reactor and let them spin around very fast with magnetic feild or whatever and see if will help increasing the mass effect field. So what do you think?**

That is an interesting idea and i may give that idea a spin or two.

Deta009: **Higgs boson. google it.**

I already know what a Higgs boson is and no i probably will not be applying its magical-mystical properties to this story.

* * *

Chapter 1a: To be or not to be?

Ryan was anxious and afraid of death, but Ryan knew what an alien invasion would mean for earth. Admiral Ryan would not run, no matter how afraid he was.

"Do we have any available data on the enemy... heat scans?... projections?... anything?" shouted Ryan, trying as hard as he could to remain calm.

One of the ensign's turned his head and gave a quick salute before he spoke up. "Admiral, we have spotted very high heat signatures emerging from the enemy vessel. Using Prothean data files we have cross-referenced the readings. Apparently the alien's use some sort of proton/anti-proton torches. These types of engine's create region's within the vacuum of space with an excess of 22 million degrees Celsius. That heat is vented out within a two kilometre cone on the sides of the alien torches. This means that if the aliens were to board us then they would have to turn off their primary engines, otherwise we would be burned up on their approach."

Admiral Ryan quickly scratched at his scalp. He knew very little about how to actually utilize his ship for space combat seeing as there was no real experience that humanity could draw upon. Since there was not a single incident with a space vessel yet, so admiral Ryan struggled to form any ideas on how to fight off an alien invader.

"Admiral, we have just received a recording on the power of their main gun. It hit our shields with a calculated 7 kilotons of TNT equivalent."

Admiral Ryan had no idea on how much force that was, so he decided to get the ensign to say that above statement with an example that he could understand.

"I'm sorry, but could you give me a comparison to how much energy that is... we are not all university educated students with an aptitude for physics."

At that the ensign sighed. "Admiral, that is about 1/4th the power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima."

"Great" was Ryan's sarcastic reply.

"Admiral, since we are clearly outmatched... perhaps we could fool them instead?"

Ryan turned his head to face the crew-member who spoke. "At this point i am willing to listen to any suggestion, so long as it saves earth the time it needs!"

"Great, what if we set off a little C4 laced with thermite on one of the useless rooms on the vessel whilst at the same time we switch off all non-important systems... make it look like something happened. I am warranting that the aliens will not fire on what they see as a dead vessel and instead of firing on us will instead board us... perhaps that's where we can beat them?"

At that admiral Ryan turned his head to face the more experienced and knowledgable crew-members.

"Would that diversionary tactic work?"

At that, one of the ensigns quickly spoke up. "It's possible, admiral. If they get within a tight enough space with us then we can blast them to hell with our carronades. You have to consider the kinetic barrier as being sort of like a bubble. If they came in to board us then we would be inside their bubble and there would be no protection except for the layers of armour plating on their hull."

Then another ensign spoke up. "But admiral, that could reveal our technology to the aliens and give them insight into our race, Humanity. If we destroyed our carronade cannons and removed most of our recorded information from our databases, then we could possibly give humanity more time. At the same time we would lose any advantage we could gain by having the enemies come in to us that close. If they ever come in that close at all, for all we know they could be mounting gamma lasers or some such technological marvel which we would stand no chance against."

Now was the time for a tactical decision... devote all his efforts to getting the enemy within range for the thin hope of destroying a possibly very advanced vessel built by the alien species... or devote that same amount of time and efforts into removing any possible revealing data that could eventually threaten the human race. It was a hard choice but with the events as they were Ryan could only choose the second option... he would order for the destruction of all the carronade's and delete any revealing data that could lead the aliens to answers on humanity. Ryan was going to order for the soldiers to fortify the hallway's against boarding actions, as this was where the battle would be dictated by force of arms instead of through the barrels of large mass accelerator cannons... as this would bring the battle into humanities favor, since historically speaking the odds generally stacked themselves on the defending side rather then on the side of the boarders.

"It is decided... tell the soldiers to barricade all exposed entryways and get them to set up as many defensive positions as they can. At the same time i want a team of demolition's experts to detonate the carronade's. I want skilled IT experts and technicians deleting as much vital and militarily important data as soon as possible... Get to it!"

"Admiral, we are entering into combat mode. Turning off all tertiary power-users, we will soon be cutting off the artificial gravity to save up on power so it is advised that you switch on your boot's magnets"

At that the admiral quickly reached for his omni-tool and activated his boot's magnets.

He hoped that through his sacrifice that he could save humanity a little bit of extra time.

* * *

Chapter 1b: The _P.F.S Quilinus_

"Commodore Tannian... we have reported many explosion's coming from the enemy decks"

"Odd, i do not recall ordering for a hit at that position... bring up the report to my Omni-tool"

"If i may ask sir, but why did you order for the firing of the alien species. Would it not have been a wiser decision to attempt to warn them?"

Kaesmus Tannian looked through the projection that appeared through his omni-tool.

"With no language and no background knowledge, i will not risk losing to the alien's, no. If we can, we will try to take prisoners. We will learn their ways and perhaps educate them of their mistakes in time, but for now we will uphold the council's laws. Unlawful activation of a dormant relay is dangerous, even if they are ignorant of the council's laws. The risk of invasion by a dangerous species calls for us to act, no matter how it may be seen."

Tannian returned to observing the projection of the enemy vessel. Tannian quickly came to one conclusion as to what the explosions might have been.

"Pilot, board that vessel as quickly as you can, make sure you turn off those anti-proton drives or else we will cook our prey."Tannian then turned to face the now confused Turian who had previously addressed him. "The aliens aboard it are detonating their ship-board weapons. They are doing so to prevent us from learning about their species, i also predict that they would be doing the same for any on-board data files. This means that in this particular situation you must act as quickly as possible or you will lose everything. Loss of tactical data that could be vital to the Hierarchy would result in my shaming by the naval board, and with it's loss, any advantage that the Hierarchy might potentially gain against this new species. These are the types of things that you learn in the Naval Academies, is that you must also learn to think from the point of view of your enemies... they are probably new to space travel and know nothing about us, so they would therefore try to preserve anything relating to their homeworld."

"Commodore, thank you for the explanation"

"All things learned in the Hierarchy stay with you for life, keep this knowledge with you as it may be invaluable to you later in life. Remember, it is not honor that saves the Hierarchy, it is clear and tactical thinking. Did the Krogan's not think they were honorable when they were bombing our worlds?... honor is a fool's errand, honor is rhetoric used to inspire ignorant masses of fools into dieing."

"I do not agree with that view."

Tannian turned to face the Turian ensign who had addressed him previously. "I would not expect you to carry my viewpoint, because you have not seen the galaxy through my eyes. Being born, prejudiced at birth makes you see things for what they are, and not as things appear be."

With that said, commodore Tannian quickly held out his palm to the comm system before giving orders. "Squad Lyrik are to prepare for boarding. Everyone else is to be on standby, secure your weapons and carry on the honor of the Hierarchy."

The Turian ensign spoke up again. "You just mentioned honor, yet you do not believe in it."

"Of course not, but it is a moot point trying to convince those criminal's of anything... i may be bare-faced ensign, but i do not agree to that sort of rabble... so i appease their sense of pride, when they are little better then the batarian scum."

Commodore Tannian questioned the resolve of his men. Commodore Tannian was widely scoffed at by the rest of the Naval board for being a bare-face, one whom did not have a facial colonial tattoo and was thus considered to be untrustworthy and as being a man held at reproach by every other Turian whom had colonial facial tattoo's.

What this meant was that commodore Tannian's cruiser, the _P.F.S Quilinus_ was crewed by a population of Turians whom either could not cut it in the regular military forces or where considered to be unfit for standard duty. This meant that there was a population of Turians on board with questionable motives.

Would they follow on with Hierarchy military standards or would they devolve into animal's without Tannian's presence, that was the fear at the back of commodore Tannian's head. The feat that his soldiers would do something so reprehensible that he would be demoted by the Hierarchy that he worked so hard to please.

* * *

Chapter 1c: First encounter with aliens

Captain Roderick Evers quickly tried his best to convey an inspiring speech to his marines.

"Marines... what is your primary god-damned duty"

All the marines shouted out as loudly as possible. **"TO KILL!"**

"That's what i fucking want to hear. I want you marines to bag me some alien heads today, so that when i return home i have some fucking mantle pieces to show off to my hypothetical wife and kid's back home. Can you do that for me Marines?"

**"SIR YES SIR!"**

"That's what i want to hear... **HORAAH!**"

**"HORAAH!"**

"Dismissed marines... remember that there are people back at home relying on how well you down these fucking aliens"

At that, all the marines quickly rushed off to whatever their appointed tasks were. Some were busy assisting other crew-members with barricading hallways or were busy mounting heavy support weapons onto side mounts and turret mounts, whilst others were either jumping into combat-rated exo-suits or were busy securing arms and passing out ammunition crates through to the heavy support guns.

Private Darrell was keenly excited at the prospect of combat which overruled his fear of death, he wanted to shoot something. He had trained hard for many many months to reach this point and now was his opportunity to fight.

"Are you Darrel?" Private Darrel turned his head to face the person who shouted at him and looked down to see a badge. 'Corporal Walt Jonathon'

"Yeah, that's me Corporal." Darrel gave a quick salute to the corporal as he was higher ranked than Darrel was.

"Private, you've been assigned to assist me. I want you to ensure that i have a steady stream of ammunition available at all times. If anything comes up i want you to provide me with firing support with that GPMG of yours... nothing gets through this hallway."

Angered that he had been relegated away from the fight, Darrell issued his disappointment and anger. "But that's fucked up corporal, i trained god-knows how hard to fight and now that its here i have to support you with fucking ammunition duties... what the fuck!"

"Shut the fuck up private and assist me. You will get your god-damned chance today, that i can assure you."

"Okay fine... what do you need?"

"You don't have to do the heavy lifting really as that's the exo's duties, what i want you to do is to bundle all the ammunition belts into a single bundle which i will feed into the M134j"

At that, private Darrell had no idea what Walt was talking about. "What the hell is an M134j?"

Corporal Walt palmed his forehead, gave a quick sigh for a moment and then gave a brief explanation. "The M134j is a minigun, you know what a minigun is right?"

"We got minigun's now, when did we have them!?"

"For-fucking ever private, now get your fucking gun and come with me. If you have ear-plugs, i would advise you to wear them."

Private Darrell raced to gather up his 7.62x51mm GPMG and a belt of ammunition. Darrel then reached for a set of ear-plug's from one of his buddies bag before putting them into both ears.

"Ready?" shouted out Walt.

"Yeah yeah keep your panties on."

Corporal Walt quickly raced up the raised metal staircase which held up two mounts, one mount had a weapon already attached whilst the second weapon was on the ground wrapped up in a cloth covering. Walt quickly tore off the cloth sheets from the weapon.

"Oi private, a little help here."

Private Darrell quickly dropped his GPMG on the ground and rushed over to assist the corporal with his task. They both dropped the weapon into a small socket on the mount. The corporal then quickly reached for a bolt and slotted it through the exposed hole through the socket. Walt quickly reached for his small wrench and set on the nut on the opposite end of the bolt before wrenching it on by hand.

It took some time before the weapon was secured to the mount tightly enough. Corporal Walt quickly took hold of the barrels and gave them a quick looking over before he rotated the barrels a few times with his hand.

Corporal Walt quickly turned his head to face down on one of the Exo-suit armoured soldiers. "Hey you there... can you pass over that 20,000 round pallet of 7.62 by 51 and drop it right over there"

The Exo-suited soldier quickly rushed over to a nearby pallet of ammunition. He quickly observed the labels on the stamped steel boxes to make sure that they were of the correct chamber. When he was sure that he was grabbing the correct pallet he slowly held it out with his outstretched hands and brought it out to railing before he dropped the pallet flat on the ground before he issued a statement. "Give those fucking xeno's hell man!"

Corporal Walt laughed for a moment before he quickly started pulling out metal boxes full of ammunition.

"Oi private, start unloading these boxes of ammo and start linking them up"

Private Darrell did as he was asked and he began to pull the linked belts of ammunition out of the metal crates of ammunition, each small crate carried a single 250 round belt of linked ammunition. Private Darrell linked one of the 250 round links onto another belt of ammunition to form a 500 round linked belt. Before Private Darrell could link on a new belt of ammunition he was halted when he heard a rumbling sound which was then followed by the sound of screeching metal.

Captain Roderick spoke up to the railed platform. "Gunners 1 and 2 get ready... start loading up quick pace or i will tan your hides!"

Corporal Walt quickly pulled the 500 round belt from private Darrell's hands and he loaded the belt into the minigun before he manually rotated one of the barrel's once with his hand. Corporal Walt then flicked open one of the two rubber trigger guards before he turned on the power source, which made the green L.E.D light flash on.

"Gunner 1 power on and weapon ready." Corporal Walt then turned to face Darrell "Private i want you to make more belts as quickly as possible before i use up this belt"

To his left privet Darrell heard the shouted call of the other gunner. "Gunner 2 power on, on standby!"

Corporal Walt grasped onto a new 250 round belt when he heard a shouted call through the room. "Contact!, 25 meters... right"

The naval soldier who shouted out his reply was riddled with mass accelerator rounds from the aliens. Upon dying the magnetic boots deactivated and the body of the soldier floated around in zero gravity... it was an oddity to many of the soldiers whom had never even seen what combat in space looked like before. Captain Roderick however had the basic idea due to being on a space combat demonstration during the testing of the first Frigate.

Captain Roderick shouted out to the room. "Marines hold fire. Gunner 1 fire into the aliens"

With the command given, he heard the almighty roar of one of the minigun's. Roderick had heard rumours about the awesome power and he had even seen documentaries and combat footage of it firing before... but being present in the room with a minigun was an entirely different thing. The sight of lit up tracers trailing through the room was a damned good sight that raised the morale of all the people within the room defending against the Xeno's, even for the naval soldiers present.

Not a moment later did the soldiers struggle to hear the moans of the dying aliens whom were trapped in the path of the travelling bullets. Captain Roderick knew deep down that there was no way in hell that anyone would be making it through that rain of lead unless the aliens had armoured support... but the pathway was too narrow.

The minigun stopped firing when the minigun ran dry. Fortunately there was no more aliens sighted in the distance, so either the aliens were biding their time and were waiting for another opportunity to attack or the aliens were all dead.

Corporal Walt turned on his suits speaker so that he could talk to the second gunner.

"Gunner 2 i am dry for now, would you please take over whilst i reload?"

"Gunner 1 this is gunner 2, i read you"

Corporal Walt grabbed one of Darrell's belt's and loaded it into the minigun. Walt was ready to fire again but the damned shell casings were blocking his view of the room.

At the same time captain Roderick turned his head to observe the minigun. That was when he saw the vast amount of spent cartridges floating around in the air. It was then that the captain knew that those floating spent cartridges could be a problem in the future, especially if it blocked the gunners from getting a good sight of their enemies.

Roderick shouted out new orders to the room.

"Gunners i want you to ease up on your ammo use, i do not want you getting blinded by cartridges. Marines get ready for combat, we are going to flush the aliens out and try to make it to the enemy vessel... if you or your team are ever at risk of being overwhelmed by the enemy, then haul your ass back here where the minigun's can cover you. On 3"

"1"

"2"

"3"

"GO!"

* * *

What do you think?


	4. Chapter 2: Feet deep in blood

Mass Affected

Disclaimer: Mass Effect owned by EA games and Bioware. Everything else either comes from my head or I have borrowed from ideas already in mainstream science.

This is an alternate universe story where humanity develops certain technologies, then discovers the Prothean archives and adapts but does not outright adopt everything about the Mass Effect. Expect differences from the canon systems alliance.

* * *

Chapter 2a: One wrong step

Pobius Octaculus walked up to the room with his newly assigned team members.

"Okay squad lyrik, with me!"

At that statement Gnaevius Vyrnnus gave a grin. His sub-tones implied that he did not view Pobius Octaculus as being worthy of being a squad leader.

"You may be the so called squad leader... Pobius, but it would be best if you stayed out of my way."

Upon saying that Gnaevius scraped his talons across the sides of his mandibles... it was the universal sign of a challenge in Turian culture and was also used as an insult, akin to calling someone a homosexual.

Pobius tried as hard as he could to maintain his military decorum, but the sight of Gnaevius had scared him. he had heard rumours that Gnaevius's older brother was a well-known mercenary commander as well as being a biotic. Biotics, especially Turian biotics were feared and shunned by most Turian's, so it seemed that Gnaevius was born with a hard shell. Saying someone had been born with a hard shell was a Turian metaphor to describe one was overly harsh or tough.

Gnaevius walked back to his men and shouted to his team as though he were the real squad leader. "Ok squad, we are going to follow this... painted boy into battle, i do not want any of you hurting him"

Pobius Octaculus knew that he was not very well liked aboard the _P.F.S Quilinus_ and that was due to the fact that his father was a very well off political figure that used his finances or rather his bribes to ensure that Pobius was sent out on a vessel that would remain far away from any actual combat. The rest of the Turian's on this vessel were generally barefaced and viewed Pobius in disdain due to the fact that he was a 'marked one'. One thing that did not help Pobius was that his father had an anti-crime based agenda and quite a few of the Turian's aboard this vessel had connections to certain shady ventures. It was ironic to Pobius that his father who was supposedly anti-crime yet he was bribing the naval board to have his son sent on a vessel that would never see combat.

Pobius decided to address the squad on what to do. "Okay squad, i want you to ready your arms and i want V.I drones on the ready."

Gnaevius laughed. "V.I drones... are you a Turian or a coward? A true Turian faces the odds and triumphs over them! Something a marked one wouldn't know about."

Pobius really, really wanted to put Gnaevius in his place. That could not happen with all of Gnaevius's friends aboard the vessel because Pobius would end up dead very quickly. Pobius decided that the best action was to agree with Gnaevius, at least for now.

"Fine then, no V.I drones. If you end up dead remember that i warned you so"

Gnaevius grinned before he reached for his Banshee assault rifle made by the ERCS (Elanus Risk Control Services). It was the one of the few frontline service assault rifles of the Turian military and fired at 600 projectiles per minute, a standard fire rate all things considered.

"We are all ready and on standby... Pobius"

"Then move out"

-Five minutes later-

It took quite some time for the ship-board plasma cutters to weld their way through the hull, but when it did the ship board docking bay expanded outwards to cover the welds and to keep the vacuum of space from filling the enemy vessel.

Squad lyrik hastily made their way through the docking bay.

It was at that point that something struck against Pobius's armour which left an indentation on his armour plate as well as having enough brute force to give Pobius something that would bruise him in a day or two.

Pobius was initially afraid as his kinetic barrier should have protected him, but he had no time to worry about the situation as right now he had enemy aliens to fight off.

Pobius quickly rolled out of the way as he heard the sounds of several impacts striking against the wall. When Pobius knew that he was safe behind a metallic crate, he quickly turned his head to where the projectiles where coming from.

Pobius spotted five aliens, four of the five aliens were firing actual firearms which he could tell by the spherical muzzle blasts emerging from their gun's which was far different from the electrical emission of a mass accelerator, which stunned Pobius.

"Contact right, 15 klirek's!" shouted out Pobius to his helmets communication suite.

"We are getting on it!" was Gnaevius's reply.

Pobius quickly held out his head from the metallic crate, acquired a quick line of sight with the aliens, raised his weapon and fired a seven shot burst into the direction of the enemy.

The alien's kinetic barriers stopped Pobius's shots, but with the swift arrival of the rest of the squad things changed. The alien's position fell apart as powerful bursts of radiant blue light ripped through the barricade of steel crates and positioned them far away down through the narrow pathway.

Pobius knew Gnaevius had used his biotic's to push the metal crates away from the aliens before he himself created a biotic barrier to protect himself.

As the aliens were now fully exposed, Pobius and the squad delivered a withering volley of high velocity shots into the enemies. Their kinetic shields withered away and with it so too did the lives of the aliens. With only white and blue coloured cloth to cover them the rounds tore right through and they were then stained in red. Blood floated around in beautiful spheres in the zero gravity… The colour of the aliens blood was red it seemed.

It was then that Gnaevius walked up to one of the aliens fueled by his curiosity.

"Hmm, they are shaped suspiciously like the Asari. These are like a male version of asari and would have no place…"

Gnaevius then turned to face the squad before boasting. "If their females look like Asari though… then I just might give one of them a fuck!... hahahahaha"

The rest of the squad snickered and the dirtiest of the members of the squad gave a shouted hoot and some harsh words describing certain acts that Pobius would not want to think about. Even Pobius found himself laughing, if more to join in with the rest of the squad than anything else. In reality Pobius was shocked by the similarities between the Asari and the aliens when he too began to check on one of the downed aliens floating in the air.

Pobius turned his head when he was done investigating to see as Gnaevius reached for one of the alien's weapons before giving it a look over.

"See here squad… these alien's still use firearms. Primitive bastards… however it also seems they have mass accelerators too judging by that one's different looking gun" Gnaevius pointed his finger in the direction of a floating alien corpse. "That probably means that the rich or elite troops would carry the mass accelerators and the poorer troops would have the firearms. This means that if we can take out the mass accelerator armed ones then we are probably taking out their elite forces, them gone we can take the other aliens without as much trouble"

Gnaevius seemed delighted at the prospect of gaining a trophy, so he began to grasp the firearm with his talons and he held it in his arms.

Pobius quickly realised that he was having his 'commanding' thunder taken away from him. Pobius took the initiative to retake charge of the squad. "Gnaevius is right, if we can take out the mass accelerator armed ones first, then we can take out the rest with less effort. Let's move out"

Pobius quickly paced his way through the narrow pathway which then led to a bend. Pobius stopped roughly two meters away from the bend and lifted his talons into the air as a sign for the squad to stop. It was on this sort of occasion where a V.I drone would have been immensely useful.

"Metcus, Tultius… check around that bend"

Both of the soldiers slowly paced themselves to the edge of the bend.

Tultius peaked his head down through the bend to observe what was on the other side.

An enemy alien spotted Tultius's head and shouted out to the room in it's strange alien tongue. Tultius and Metcus quickly rushed out to the bend and leveled their assault rifles onto the alien and fired several short bursts.

The alien was not wearing a kinetic barrier so he was killed upon the first bursts that struck it, its red blood burst outwards and formed spheres that floated around.

Several squad members rushed out without permission to assist Tultius and Metcus.

It was at this point that Pobius heard a new sound emerge as he was rushing in to stop the disobedient squad members.

To Pobius it was a sound that he had never heard before, it was unlike any sound that he had ever heard but it was a noise that would forever be struck into his mind.

With that one droning sound came death, Pobius realised. Flashes of brightly illuminated red projectiles flew through the air and struck upon the hull plating. Some projectiles bounced off or spat out backwards in a dazzling display of sparks. Pobius knew that those of the squad who were on the bend where dead, surviving through such a sheer amount of projectiles would be nearly impossible.

Pobius heard screams coming in not from his communications suite, but through the cracked helmet visors of several crewmembers.

The sound stopped and an eerie quietness surrounded the whole vessel.

Pobius decided to order the rest of the squad to retreat, so he spoke into his suit's communication's suite to the commodore.

"Commodore Tannian, the aliens have killed several of our squad, I am asking for permission to retreat back to the Quilinus"

Gnaevius heard the discussion through his communications suite and he would not have it. "My squad is not retreating from this fight. No Turian shows his back to the enemy 'till they are dead!"

Commodore Tannian offered his retort back to the disruptive soldier. "Gnaevius… disobey one more of my orders and you will be cleaning the latrine for a week. This is not your squad, it is Pobius's squad and it will remain his squad until I see fit… disobey an order and you will see to it that you will never be squad leader ever again." Commodore Tannian then addressed back to Pobius. "Pobius you and your squad have permission to return back. Be sure to do anything in your path to delay the aliens when retreating. I am sure that you are actually knowledgeable about hierarchy military standards and that you would know what I mean by delaying actions"

"Yes sir…" Pobius cleared his throat before reciting his memorised portion of the Hierarchy military standards "Upon retreat Turian forces are to do anything that they can do to delay the enemy forces and save the hierarchy more time… laying mines, setting traps and sabotaging equipment are the usual delaying actions used"

Commodore Tannian laughed before speaking back. "Indeed, be sure to teach Gnaevius how the real hierarchy does things... teach that disobedient 'Cabal' dog how real Turians do things!"

Pobius grinned. He really wanted to reprimand Gnaevius by telling him that if they had brought a V.I drone with them then the loss of Turian lives could have been avoided, but doing so would have been really bad for the morale of the squad and would only cause Gnaevius to lash out in anger which could lead to Pobius's accidental demise.

Pobius turned to face Vomius, one of the squad members.

"Vomius, you still have those proximity charges… yes?"

"Yes sir"

"Pass them over to me, I do not trust any of you enough to do this"

Vomius quickly threw the pack of three proximity mines to Pobius.

Pobius quickly tore open the tied sash that held the mines together with his talons.

With that done Pobius quickly ordered for the squad to retreat whilst he would lay down the mines and retreat later. Pobius was always on the alert for spots most suited for placing down proximity mines as he was rushing down the same hallway that lead to the docking bay of the Quilinus.

Pobius found a rather large crate that had a broken off side with a large hole, so he lifted the crate on its side and carefully placed his first proximity mine into the hole with the proximity sensors going through the hole in the crate. It would be hard for the pursuers to spot and it would be nearly impossible to avoid the sensor beam to straying feet... the result would be deadly.

With the mine laid out, Pobius quickly started retreating back to the entry point.

Upon reaching the bodies of the floating aliens near the docking bay, Pobius had a sudden hit of inspiration.

"Hehehe" laughed Pobius in a malicious grin, if there was one thing that many Turians forgot about Pobius, it was that he could be vicious himself to a scary degree.

Pobius placed one of his proximity mines onto the chest of the alien and then secured the mine around the aliens hands. If Pobius was lucky a curious alien would come over to investigate the strange object in the alien's hand's... and boom.

With one mine left in his hand and with nowhere else to go Pobius decided to go with a rather lazy but also potentially deadly option. Pobius decided to throw the proximity mine up on the roof near what seemed to be a light. If Pobius was lucky the aliens would see the proximity mine as being an addition to the light fixture and that the aliens would probably presume it was some sort of smoke detector or some such thing. Additionally with this mine being in close proximity to the second mine, they could potentially both detonate and do much more damage than normal. It would also be much harder for the aliens to detect both mines without detonating one or the other in the process.

Pobius retreated back to the docking bay and rushed down as fast as he could.

Upon reaching the ship he was greeted by a fully crewed palisade constructed out of cargo containers. Guns of various sizes were drawn up on him as he entered through but they were all quickly lowered upon realising that he was Turian.

* * *

Chapter 2b: Feet deep in blood

Pvt Christopher Bascomb could not escape from his own curiosity… he had to know about the aliens and what they looked like. So pvt Christopher broke from his formation and did a quick investigation.

Pvt Christopher unceremoniously removed the cracked visor from one of the floating aliens. Upon the removal of the visor Christopher saw a predatory looking bird/raptor like face that had weird mandible like protrusions coming out from the side of its cheeks. To top that off was the line of razor sharp, pointed teeth that were the stuff of nightmares.

"Ugly fuckers aren't they?" Christopher heard a voice from his back so he turned his head.

"Captain!" Christopher quickly stood up and gave a salute as he noticed who the person was who spoke to him.

"At ease… damned good armour these aliens seem to have. Seems the armour managed to hold up quite well against a few 7.62 rounds. If our boys were using SLAP rounds it would probably be a different story, probably would've torn right on through the armour"

Christopher decided to speak up, even though he was afraid of a reprimand... after all he had never had a captain who talked so openly before. "I wonder what the xeno's will tell their buddies back on the vessel… at the same time though they might have fucking plasma miniguns aboard their vessel for all we know"

Captain Roderick gave a good laugh before giving a reply. "No shit, fifty rounds every second will fuck up anybody on the opposite end of that barrel. I would not want to imagine the amount of blunt force trauma all that armour couldn't protect against… I bet you the surviving aliens will be frightened and they know that we have a fucking bitch-slap device aboard our ship ready to go at all times... If they have plasma miniguns though... well that would be very fucking bad for us"

Christopher began to reach his hand to grab at one of the alien's guns when the Captain quickly grasped Christophers hand before he could touch the alien weapon.

"You are not touching alien ordinance on this god-damned vessel, you hear me… it could be rigged to go off on contact"

Before Christopher could offer up a few words in his defence, the sound of a series of small explosion's resounded through the hull and caused the room to slightly vibrate momentarily.

"Fuck!" shouted the Captain.

Christopher and Roderick as well as a fraction of the naval officers stopped what they were doing and rushed down the hallway to investigate the source of the disturbance.

They reached the site of the first explosion about a minute later. They saw carbon scoring on a half metre length of hallway floor as well as the scattered debris from what looked to be a crate. Floating around were large globules of red blood. Two soldiers were floating around but they did not know if they were dead or not.

Captain Roderick rushed to the sight of the bodies and he quickly held out his fingertips against the necks of the floating soldiers to get their vital signs.

"No heartbeat… this one is dead" Roderick turned around to repeat the same method on the second soldier. "Same as the last… no heartbeat. Two KIA, move out"

When the soldiers and naval troops continued onwards they saw the site of the last two explosions.

Organs, intestines and limbs of blown up soldiers were scattered around here and there whilst the whole region was speckled in floating blood globules. The fucked up bit would be that to get through to the enemy vessel you would have to walk through all that blood and the mess of gore.

Fortunately through all that mess there were several survivors who seemed to have been knocked unconscious from the blast.

Christopher rushed off to a nearby corner to vomit. Puking in zero gravity was never a pleasant experience, especially when the vile substance could float around and hit you, which several globules of vomit decided to do by placing themselves onto his combat armour.

"God-damned alien motherfuckers!" blurted out Roderick at the violent display.

"I think we have two survivors, get the stretcher!" shouted out a naval soldier.

Roderick quickly thought about the prospects and realized that it would be a waste of time to get a stretcher.

"No stretchers and no medics, there is no god damned time… they might as well be dead when the aliens get to them"

"But…" replied the naval soldier.

"No but's navy boy, you do your fucking job and you follow my fucking orders… got it!" rebutted Roderick.

Roderick did not want to go through all that putrid body matter to get to enemy vessel, so he opened up his communication suite and dialled in the frequency to Admiral Ryan's Omni-tool.

"Captain Roderick, I take it that the boarding action is going well?"

Roderick gave back his honest reply. "We have several KIA and what could be two concussed soldiers from enemy exploding ordinance… I want you to turn on the gravity"

Admiral Ryan's face lit up in curiosity.

"Why?"

Roderick quickly took a picture of the mess with his omni-tool and sent it to the Admiral.

"Fucking hell! I will get one of the engineers to turn the gravity back on but it may take a few minutes… kill some fucking aliens for this shit!"

It took about two minutes but eventually the ship began to receive gravity. They could tell by the fact that all the blood and the body parts began to fall down to the floor in a great sloshing pool of blood and gore.

Roderick and the rest of the men continued forwards through the narrow hallway.

Pvt Christopher closed his eyes as he was forced to wade through the torrent of blood and gore that lined the floor. The sound and the sensation of stepping on bodily organs on accident were embedded deeply in Christopher's mind… this was beyond fucked up. Christopher knew that one day he just might wake up on the opposite end of a shrink from witnessing this sort of fucked up shit.

After he managed to wade through it, he felt a pat on the back from one of the nearby soldiers.

"Take a deep breath pukey, eight deep breaths will get you through anything"

Christopher took in a deep breath and calmed himself down. By the end of his sixth breath Christopher began to feel much calmer and ready, by the eight he was a new man, calm and assured knowing that he fought for humanity, that he was fighting for the right cause.

"Feeling better pukey?"

Christopher grinned before he turned to speak to the soldier. "Yeah… my name isn't pukey and my head is back in the game"

Roderick waved his fist through the air before he spoke to Christopher and the nearby soldier.

"Enough chatter, we have an alien fucking vessel to board and i want to be there pronto"

Roderick turned his head to ensure that all the soldiers were ready to go. "So who is ready to enter the lion's den and kick some fucking alien ass?"

Roderick then took a moment to think, before a hint of inspiration entered his mind.

"Have we got any exo-suiter's armed with riot shields?"

One of the soldiers gave a speedy reply. "I think we have two of them... they would be good defense against fucking mass accelerators, that's for fucking sure."

"Then get them to get their asses's over here as soon as fucking possible."

* * *

See you later... Space cowboy

So what did you think?


	5. Chapter 3: A Warning

Mass Affected

Disclaimer: Mass Effect owned by EA games and Bioware. Everything else either comes from my head or I have borrowed from ideas already in mainstream science.

This is an alternate universe story where humanity develops certain technologies, then discovers the Prothean archives and adapts but does not outright adopt everything about the Mass Effect. Expect differences from the canon systems alliance.

* * *

Chapter 3a: A warning.

"General Jian Liang!... General Jian Liang!... We have a top level red alert message from admiral Cheng Wei!"

Jian Liang quickly returned his mug of coffee down to his hickory desk before quickly straightening out his moustache.

Liang waved his right hand in the direction of the far wall which had a large screen.

"Relay the message."

The rushing comm officer quickly reached through to his omni-tool before waving his hand over to the screen on the far wall.

Admiral Wei's face emerged in a bluish-reddish haze that cleared away in a few seconds. Noticing that the connection had been established, Admiral Wei straightened his uniform before clearing his throat quietly.

"General Liang, i have urgent news about the American relay expedition."

Jian Liang quickly straightened out his beige uniform before re-facing the screen.

"What is so urgent Admiral Wei, did the American's attack you?"

"Worse than that general. Our Lidar sensors detected a metal object 15000 kilometres away from the relay. A moment later the object was moving towards us at great speeds and then the American's were preemptively attacked by aliens. We have recorded the measurements from that attack and are compiling it."

The office was quickly surrounded by a quiet sense of dread.

General Liang knew that admiral Wei was an outstanding admiral and one who was not prone to such flights of fancy. If admiral Wei had said that aliens had attacked then Liang knew that aliens had attacked.

"Admiral Wei… have you informed the American's, the Russian's or the United Nations?"

Admiral Cheng Wei quickly took on a solemn expression.

"Not yet, i am waiting for our analysis to be completed before we relay the message through the comm-buoy. There is no way that the American's, the Russian's or the United Nation's will devote resources until we present them with proof of an alien attack. The American's on board the U.S.S Hydra will hopefully give us enough time that relief forces can arrive for Shanxi. I will personally take revenge on these aliens. I may not have told you this, Admiral Ryan and his crew sacrificed their lives to ensure that we could escape, I will ensure that their deaths are not in vain!"

_'Odd'_ Admiral Liang thought, because he had heard rumour's that Admiral Wei was opposed to working alongside the American's. Perhaps admiral Wei was spinning a story for his own gain. If that was true then General Liang would have him executed through any means possible. Liang did not like those who resorted to trickery to gain advancement at the cost of the people and the state, even though doing so would leave General Liang liable to execution by the state that he swore to defend.

General Liang cleared his head from his thoughts and settled his head back to the moment at hand.

"Comm's officer, inform every soldier that they are to settle in for war. They are to break open our stockpiles of weapons, equipment and rations and they are to distribute them to all the bunkers, pill boxes and dug-outs. We are to be like the Vietnamese or the North Koreans. We will build underground spaces as quickly as the dissident workers are able to. We will fight to the death… nothing more and nothing less for our great nation!"

General Liang halted his speech for a moment before filling his voice with a fire.

"These foul aliens will know of our resolve as we trample them to dust, we will set their rotting heads on pikes to display back in the Tiananmen Square."

With that said, General Liang turned to face the comm's man.

"Cut transmission"

With the screen gone, Admiral Cheng Wei was left to view the starscape with the gleaming orb that was Shanxi glittering in the not-too far distance.

Admiral Cheng Wei quickly brought his hand back to his flask of distilled liquor before guzzling it down without a care.

When he had emptied his glass, he turned his face to his right to gaze at the lovely body of his ensign... or rather his secret lover. "I hope general Liang has bought it. This incident will make me very very rich, i will execute the aliens and be viewed in a positive light. The path to even greater power will soon be mine!"

The ensign, Mei Xifeng came closer before whispering into Cheng's ears.

"He had better not find out... my love"

Cheng laughed.

"You will go very... very far, you seductive woman!"

The couple kissed and embraced each other for quite some time, much to the chagrin of the other crew-members who had the indecency of working under such a villainous admiral and the 'she-minx bitch' as the crew called her. The talk on everyone's lips was the hope that the government would find out about him and his whore and bring them both a needed dose of justice... hopefully at the end of a bayonet or a firing line.

* * *

Chapter 3b: Gap's and measures.

Private Christopher hated the waiting. But when the heavy military exo-suiter's arrived with their thick riot shields that measured about 2 meters wide by 1 meter tall, things had changed.

Okay, that was an understatement. They were not to be considered riot shield's, in Christopher's eyes. Rather they should be considered to be a movable wall of thick composite's and treated metal that was then followed by a thin anti-spalling surface coating that was designed to trap fragments from shrapnel and small arms fire. It could stop a 20x102mm shell from 400 meters at a 0 degree elevation (But not against 20x102mm AP rounds), and was widely considered by many as being completely overkill as a defensive shield. But at least now it would find a use combating alien weaponry.

The hanger door creaked as it was slowly welded open by a high powered plasma torch.

Captain Roderick quickly shouted out an order through the narrow hallway.

"Remember men, this is going to be fucking edgy. Put your hard-suit helmet's on and use your auxiliary re-breather's because we are going to flood the room with willie pete grenades. I don't think i have to tell you what white phosphorous gas can do to you... and i sure hope the fucking alien's don't either."

One of the naval officer's raised his voice. "Hang on, isn't White Phosphorous banned?"

"Against civilian target's sure, but not against military personnel. Now i don't know if it is just me or not, but i think these aliens qualify as military personnel, they sure didn't lay out a fucking welcome mat. White Phosphorous is the best god-damned smoke-screening agent in the galaxy for a fucking reason, which is why i am going to use it, now fall in line."

After a minute or so of intense heat from the plasma torch, a relatively tiny bit of the hanger bay door melted open, revealing the alien crew and the ship layout to several of the boarding party.

It was not a very large gap, but the aliens tried to fire through the gap to hit the patiently waiting boarding party.

Christopher heard the faint whiz of a strike against a nearby kinetic barrier. It was not very long before one of the exo-suiter's dropped a riot shield in front of the exposed section to prevent more indirect shot's from hitting anyone.

Captain Roderick saw the gap and realised that he could exploit it.

"Private Baker, do you have those WP round's i was asking for?"

Private Baker nodded his head before speaking.

"I sure do."

Roderick pointed to the gap. "Put your under-barrel through that gap and launch it through. If everything goes smoothly it will take maybe two minutes or so before that door is fully heated through. By the time that happens, the smoke should have filled most of that room."

Private Baker quickly reached towards the door from the side's to avoid being exposed to enemy fire. leaning sideway's, he then haphazardly pulled a 40x46mm WP smoke round from a satchel that was hanging off of his hips. Baker put the round through the breech of his under-barrel grenade launcher before pulling the satchel back.

Baker carefully slotted his assault rifle through the gap before blindly triggering the under-barrel grenade launcher. The 40x46mm WP smoke grenade was launched out at 76 meters per second and took less than a second to strike against a cargo crate, causing the round to explode. The grenade released a large quantity of small shard's of white phosphorous metal to the air, which began smoking as soon as it was released into the air in vicious tendrils of thick, white smoke.

Private Baker pulled the spent cartridge case from the breech before loading in another WP smoke grenade. Baker slotted his assault rifle through the gap of the door like before and fired blindly through it, hoping that the round would fly at the right distance that the round would arm itself.

The round exploded, releasing an even greater volume of white-hot sparks through the room. The smoke was gradually getting thicker and thicker with every passing second.

By the time Baker had extracted the second shell casing from his breech, the smoke was beginning to seep through the gap in small tendril's.

It faintly reminded Private Christopher of a children's horror show. "Fucking mystery smoke, reminds me of a kid's horror show."

A nearby soldier laughed. "No shit, fucking A. This is some moody shit, when were done, we ought to lay out the marshmallows and have the Captain tell us some spooky stories."

Christopher laughed. "Fucking A man, i bet you the Captain will scare us with his tale's about the peril of latrine duties."

Roderick grinned inwardly before shouting out to the group. "Shut the fuck up and be ready." As Roderick turned his head back to face the door, he let loose a smile. Roderick had overheard their banter and laughed to himself silently.

Baker realised that he had run out of WP smoke rounds, so he spoke up through the hall to ask for permission to engage the enemy with alternate rounds. "Captain, permission to use explosive ordinance."

Roderick gave gestured to Baker with his left hand, thumb's up. "You have permission to engage. Light 'em up."

Baker searched through his satchel before spotting the blue and gold lined case of a thermabaric round. Baker grasped it and loaded it into the breech of his under-barrel grenade launcher before slotting his rifle through the small gap.

Baker blind fired through the gap, hoping that the round would reach the arming distance and explode.

The thermabaric round exploded with vicious force as it sucked in large enough quantities of air that even the boarding party could hear it through the gap.

One of the plasma welder's shouted out into the room. "The door is about to give, it's reaching it's breaking point!"

Christopher readied himself, it was now or never.

Within five seconds, the hanger door began to warp, before finally giving way and cracking to pieces.

Roderick shouted out to the boarding party. "Into the lions mouth. We are going to fuck 'em up and teach them a lesson!"

The hallway filled up with rapidly expanding smoke... everyone was blind, and it reminded Christopher of tales about what Heaven might be like.

Before Christopher knew it, he saw nothing and felt nothing as he slumped to the ground before loosing consciousness.

* * *

Chapter 3c: A valiant effort.

Tannian couldn't believe how ill disciplined his crew were. About 1 in 4 of every crewman insisted on leaving off their helmet's, a foolish action that could well mean the loss of Turian lives.

Tannian was ashamed, not of himself, but on the barefaced one's who acted so foolishly... so callously. They disregard safety for 'honour'. Believing in a code from a by-gone era of Turian epics back in the Turian Iron-age, Tannian could not grasp the foolishness of it.

Pobius looked down from his elevated position that was covered by a thin railing. Pobius was eager for a fight, and willing to give the alien's hell.

"You there, get that turret on line."

Pobius heard the voice of Commodore Tannian. Pobius quickly turned around and rushed down the stairs of his elevated position.

"Sir, forgive my indiscretion but i seriously suggest that you go back to the bridge where it is safe."

"Ah, just the soldier i wanted to see. Now Pobius, i am going to be very frank, but let me tell you something. This is my ship, my vessel and i can do whatever i want to do on board my vessel." Tannian then pointed up to the railing where Pobius was once situated not a minute ago "Now get back up that railing and defend my damn ship against those would be boarders."

Pobius did as he was told. His view remained the same as before... except for one noticeable difference.

Before, the hanger door was grey and aged... now it was grey, aged and bit's of it where glowing red hot.

Pobius gripped his Banshee assault rifle with a new found determination and eagerness.

Before long a small gauge had been melted out of the hanger door, revealing the sight of hard-suit armoured alien soldiers.

Gnaevius Vyrnnus shouted out to the hallway. "Fire on them!"

Pobius knew that Gnaevius had no right's to order the ship crew about like he just did. If Pobius could tally the number of people that supported Gnaevius, Pobius would probably reach seventy percent on the tally who would've supported Gnaevius, from all on-board crew. Most of that percentage were little better than thugs, and almost all of them would be barefaced, Pobius just knew it in his gut.

Pobius decided to save face and join in with the rest of the idiot's. Pobius knew that his shot's would probably do more psychological harm then physical harm on the enemy, because the hole in the doorway was not very big at all. The hole in the door was perhap's the circumference of a large Lykeric, which was a small native fruit that apparently grew on Thessia, not that Pobius knew much about Asari flora or fauna.

Pobius let loose a small three round burst, but as expected his shoot grouping left much to be desired.

Pobius sighed and took a breath, but what came next shocked Pobius.

A weapon... an assault rifle was forced through the gap. What came out was not a bullet or a mass accelerator projectile as expected, but instead came out a propelled grenade which struck against a nearby crate and exploded. The explosion was fairly small in radius, but that was not what shook Pobius. Rather it was the tiny splinter like sparks of white-hot metal that shocked Pobius. The trails of smoke didn't help much either. Not long after a huge pillar of whitish smoke drifted upwards, blocking Pobius's elevated line of sight from anything past two meters in front of him.

Pobius made to switch his helmet to view in the infra-red frequency, but realised that the smoke obscured all vision even with infra-red. Pobius then switched to night vision mode, but all that did was illuminate the white hot spark's of metal one hundred fold, causing Pobius to have blind spots in his vision when he quickly turned his night vision off.

Pobius soon realised an adverse effect that this smoke would have, and it startled Pobius.

If the infra-red sensors were blocked by the smoke, then that meant that the targeting sensors for the automated defense turret would no longer be usable in the coming boarding action. This meant that more lives could be put at risk because the turret would not be able to tell friend from foe, thanks mainly in part due to the age of the automated defense turret.

Pobius quickly shouted to the room, hoping that the right person had heard him.

"The turret, shut down that turret! This smoke block's their targeting sensors."

Pobius's word's came too late. The automated defense turret that was on board was very old, at about 100 years old. Thus it could not be maintained without specially pre-ordered parts. It didn't help that the automated turret also relied on outdated targeting sensor's, but given how effective it had been in the past, Pobius could not fault Tannian for keeping them on board. After all, why fix a crooked talon if it could still cut, as the saying goes.

The sound of gunfire spread it's way through the room, the gas was causing chaos to everyone's senses and people could not see through the dense smoke through artificial means. The smoke also had a scent that blocked the nasal receptors of the crew members without helmets, meaning that everyone, even Pobius were for all intents and purposes blind when it came to four of their five senses.

-Klak-

Pobius saw as his kinetic barrier flared to life against an impact. Pobius deduced that the round came from the automated turret, as it had come from up above.

Since the techie's were doing fuck all, Pobius decided that he would take matters into his own hand's.

Pobius sighted down where he remembered the turret mounting to be and fired single shots continuously until he heard the faint crackle of sparking electronic gear, which meant that Pobius had hit what he had targeted.

Pobius's sense of satisfaction at destroying something didn't stay for long because a new explosion issued it's way through the room, throwing out new smoke into the already smoke-chocked hanger.

Pobius heard pain filled screams from down below, but he could not see anything due to the thick smoke.

"AAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH Get it off me get it off me... get it off my face!"

"Here."

_'Are we being attacked... are they charging in?' _thought Pobius.

"I feel much better. Spirits that was fucking painful."

"Then get back up. That water cooled down the metal, so keep on fighting until we can visit the doctor to remove the shards."

Pobius felt as a small object hit against the shoulder plate of his hardsuit. Pobius craned his neck to see that it was a white metallic chunk that was burning readily. Pobius flicked it off of his shoulder. The illuminated metal left behind a slightly reddish patch of a chalk like material on his shoulder plate, as well as where the metal had blackened his shoulder plate from the intense heat.

Whatever weapon's that the alien's were using, Pobius would have to admit that it was damned effective. Pobius had encountered smoke grenades in the boot-camp during situation training, but they didn't work as effective as those grenades. If Pobius would take something from the alien's arsenal as a trophy like Gnaevius did, he would be sure to pick up one of those grenade's, as well as whatever weapon platform had killed several of his squad previously.

Pobius couldn't continue his line of thought, as a new tumult issued through the vessel.

Pobius's ears were filling up with blood, his visor's helmet screen was all cracked. Even the smoke was mitigated for a moment as it got sucked right into a large flame-ball. It came from nowhere, seconds ago he was thinking about alien weaponry, and now he was up against the railing with a broken visor and bleeding ears... and a very deep and heavy feeling in his gut's and chest.

'What in the spirit's was that' thought Pobius, as he cradled himself against the railing to stop from falling over the edge.

The feeling inside of his stomach churned repeatedly... he was about to throw up.

Pobius quickly tore off his helmet by using his head to lever it onto the railing, up ending it and letting gravity do the rest. Pobius craned his neck to the side before puking up the contents inside of his stomach onto his shoulder plate and chest plate. Whatever that bomb... explosive... whatever the hell it was had done, it must have done some inside bodily trauma because there were a few speckles of blue blood inside of his puke. Pobius would be sure to visit a doctor when this was all over.

Pobius's grip failed him and he fell off the railing and onto the cold floor. It wasnt much of a fall, but with blood in your ears and no sense of perception and a coloumn of white smoke surrounding you wherever you went, it was like going in a sky-speeder and pulling the brakes, letting gravity take over and plummeting downwards... not a very nice experience.

Pobius felt like complete and utter shit as he lay upon the floor, contemplating his life and the meaning in it. Whatever confidence he had earlier was now lost, this would be a battle for survival.

Pobius had no sense of perception, he couldn't hear anything because his ears were ringing and full of blood and he could only see white smoke no matter how hard he tried... always white. Pobius knew that if he survived this battle, his new worst colour would be white, instead of light green. Pobius couldnt even smell anything thanks to whatever the hell that smoke was made of which blocked his smell receptors, it was like having a flu. The only thing Pobius could taste was the copper in his blood and the taste of puke.

'This was not how i imagined this shit would go... if war is like this, get me the fuck out of here!'

Pobius began to feel around with his legs and feet to get a sense of where he was. He felt something near his right boot once, so he went into the direction and felt something cool to the touch.

Pobius picked it up and realised that it was an 'Avenger' model assault rifle that was designed by Elkoss combine. It must have been thrown about in the explosion, but whoever owned would've been pissed at losing such a prized possession. The Avenger was medium rate when it came to assault rifles, but compared to a Banshee... well there is no real comparison. The better eezo recoil system and improved VI targeting module meant that shot groupings were that much tighter, but they were also twice as expensive... whoever owned this had cash in wide talons, especially if it was someone from the P.F.S Quilinus.

Pobius tapped the central button on the right side and watched as the weapon unfolded into his hand. Pobius really loved to unfold and refold his weapon's repeatedly, it gave him a sense of satisfaction with the sound that it produced.

Pobius saw an alien rushing through, about eight meters away. Without thinking Pobius leveled his weapon and fired two round's.

All of his rounds hit right onto the alien's kinetic barrier, which sparked blue for a moment before fading away. The alien noticed that it was being fired upon and presented its weapon and fired.

Whatever weapon the alien had shot fast... ridiculously fast. Spent cartridge casings were quickly adorning the floor.

Pobius raced behind a small packaging container. Pobius took in a deep breathe through his lungs.

Pobius waited for a moment before raising his head. He was not able to get a lock onto his opponent however because the alien fired multiple rounds right near his head. If he didn't have a kinetic barrier protecting him, Pobius knew that he would've been dead. Pobius could tell that the alien was using trigger discipline as it never fired off more than three to four rounds per trigger pull. Worse was that those bursts were the most accurate and sustained bursts that he had ever seen before. Pobius guessed that it was because their chemical firearms produced so little recoil force in comparison to a mass accelerator, which required eezo-recoil reduction systems to even be anywhere near fireable.

Pobius retaliated by holding up his assault rifle and firing blindly at full rate, roughly 600 projectiles per minute. Pobius gripped down as hard as he could whilst firing to better handle the recoil force's as his rounds flew in the direction that he thought the enemy was in.

It took about 3 and a half seconds of sustained firing before his weapon overheated. Pobius lowered the weapon and hoped that it would cool down fast enough.

He was wrong. The alien did an unexpected move and jumped right over the packaging crate armed with a knife.

Pobius reached for his pistol but by the time it was unfolding, Pobius was struck.

The enemy had stabbed into his hipbone, the part of his anatomy where it was the weakest place on his armour as it was only covered by ballistic mesh and cloth armour. It stung like hell, but at least the blade got stuck in and wasn't pulled out.

Pobius swung with full force and knocked the alien to it's feet. Pobius aimed his sidearm, his 'Striker' pistol and fired into the enemy. Their kinetic barrier's stopped most of Pobius's rounds, until he fired his last round into the alien's chest. With his 'Striker' pistol overheated, he quickly throw it back onto his back where it clung itself to Pobius's metalic armour strip.

Pobius quickly went over to see if the alien was dead. Pobius craned his body downwards and pulled off the aliens helmet. The skin was like an asari if it was pink, but it was like every other alien that he had seen before. However the unusual shaping of the chest plate lead him to believe that the alien might in fact be female.

Pobius, not knowing what to do, decided to just leave the alien and continue to defend against the would be boarders.

Pobius stuck to his self-assigned posting behind the packaging container for what felt like hours. Every ten seconds or so, Pobius would take a look at his surroundings before returning to looking at the possibly female alien.

Pobius saw a silhouette through the cloud of smoke, so Pobius held out his 'Avenger' and waited to see if it was an ally or an enemy.

Pobius was relieved when it was revealed that the owner of the silhouette was Tannian.

Tannian had moved his lips, but Pobius could not hear him through the ringing in his ears.

Pobius pointed to an ear hole with his right hand. "I can't hear you Commodore... blood in ear... ringing."

Behind Tannian came Gnaevius. Gnaevius who was now armed with a bunch of human trophy weapon's. Inwardly Pobius was jealous. Why did the best thing's in life happen to other people but him?

Then he remembered the alien.

Pobius pointed in the direction of the alien. "Alien there... i think it is female."

Gnaevius opened his mouth, speaking. Since Pobius couldn't hear he had no idea what Gnaevius was saying, but it probably wasn't anything nice.

Pobius felt like a nobody, a nothing... as though he did fuck all on the battlefield. He couldn't hear, he couldn't smell and he could barely taste anything besides his own vomit. He even still had that knife sticking in out of his hip that Pobius didn't want to remove, incase it would bleed out. No... Pobius might just leave the military after all, if it was always like this.

Pobius wanted sleep, food and a nice glass of water after all this. Fuck the glory, fuck the pain, it got him nowhere.

* * *

Chapter 3d: Haze of confusion

Williams was reviewing the quota list when he heard the sound of rushed footsteps on the other side of his desk.

"Brigadier General Williams?"

Williams turned his head from his video pad to look out on the obviously British soldier whom he could identify through the soldiers accent. A second later Williams mentally chastised himself as he was no longer in the army, that Williams was not really a brigadier general anymore and that this was no soldier that he was looking at, but rather a mercenary. Williams scanned for a badge and read it before beginning to speak to the soldier.

"What is it Private Cullen?"

The mercenary soldier quickly cleared his throat before beginning to speak. "Well this may not really be that important, but I saw a bunch of Chinese soldiers rushing around with weapon and ammunition crates…" Cullen would have said more but he was halted by Williams who stopped him.

"Get to the point Private, i do not have all day!"

"I saw fear in their faces and in their eyes… it ain't normal. The Chinese are some of the harshest bastards i've ever seen, but to put actual fear into them… well something real bad must have happened. Maybe there's a dissident worker riot or something like that going on?"

Brigadier general Williams would not tell the soldier this, but he too noticed the same thing with the Chinese soldiers. Earlier in the morning Williams was jogging through the streets on his daily exercise routine when he spotted chinese soldiers rushing around haphazardly with bundles of assault rifles. Normally this would not have fazed him that much, indeed it reminded Williams of his early days back in his boot camp days. The look of fear that was present on their faces lit up a few warning signs for Williams.

"Very well soldier, i will look into this matter personally" As an afterthought, Williams remembered a close friend whom Williams could trust to handle this delicate situation. "On your way out tell Captain Johnson to come into my office"

Williams returned back to the task of reading through the quota. Williams was not the smartest man, nor was he ever to be considered good at mathematics but even he could see that the profit margin was taking a steady toll. This meant that Williams would have to be harsher and more 'enticing' to the mining slaves.

Yes, Williams had no other word to describe the workers except to call them slaves, instead of the Chinese moniker 'dissident workers'. This was what the workers really were, slaves to the oppressive Chinese government. Worse was the fact that business conglomerates and mining companies were willing to exploit the 'dissident workers' to satisfy their demands for eezo, either to support military needs or as the main ingredient in consumer products, mainly in Omni-tools both American and Chinese as those were the only two nations who knew the secret to their production. The Guan Yu conglomerate in particular where notorious for not following standard work safety conditions, and for their particularly cruel treatment toward's the 'dissident workers'. Which is what made it partially satisfactory that William's was working for the American company as the leader of a PMC defense group, though to be honest even the American company was enforcing fucked up rules and was still a fucked up company exploiting chinese religious and political dissidents as 'slave labour', the kind of shit that ought to have been banished with the 14th amendment.

Williams took a quick sip from his nearby coffee mug before continuing to grimace at how earth continued to spiral out of proportion. Here Williams was, sitting here on Shanxi ensuring that slaves continued to mine eezo for the burgeoning businesses and aero-space industries. This job sickened Williams, but he had nowhere else to go and a family on the way and Williams desperately needed the money.

"Williams, i heard you needed me?"

Broken from his trailing thoughts, Williams quickly turned his gaze from his video pad to the face of Captain Johnson.

"Johnson… i hate to be a bother, but i want you to go to General Jian Liang, find out what has gotten the Chinese military into a stir and then i want you to return here with the news."

"You're talking about those Chinese guys running around with crates and stuff right… well damn i noticed that shit too. The Chinese have a reputation as being harsh motherfuckers, to stir them up it would have to be big"

General Williams offered that one thing that many people thought was an impossibility, he offered a compliment. "Hell Johnson, i could give you bunch of quote's written by poets, but let me tell you whatever stirs up the Chinese… well I would hate to be on the opposite end of those guns. The damn Chinese have plenty of guns. Plenty of people too. Anyone fucking with the chinese might be a threat to others, and threats need to be reported to the proper authorities. I am damn well sure that the Chinese might not take to that responsibility well enough."

Johnson made to leave the room. "Right, i guess i will go see what i can do over at the Chinese headquarters... wish me luck."


	6. Loss of Freedomguard

There was a man, who called himself Freedomguard.

He wrote stories, he wrote them big, and he wrote them well.

It has brought tears to my eyes at the knowledge that the man who wrote millions of words on some 46 or so stories, who has devoted such time and effort on such a multitude of fictions... He who was an idol to many, and for me i held him in high regard. He has died, but he will live on not only in my heart and in my writing, but in the hearts and writing styles of many fanfiction authors throughout this site, a many people of many races, of many cultures, we shall remember his memory, and we shall treasure his stories.

I never knew Freedomguard in life, and i only ever received one reply from him in a private message... yet he will forever remain influential to me. It is safe to say that his stories and writing style was 40 percent of the inspiration which caused me to pick up fanficition writing as an author, a novice one.

In life, he has influenced me, and in death he has influenced me. I feel that since it was mostly his work that inspired me, thus i thought it would be fitting if i wrote an Epitaph for Freedomguard.

From words step in deep entwined.  
In sorrow learn of your demise.  
I swear to learn in your memory.  
I fight with pen, if not with sword.  
This is my first epitaph i have ever wrote, and though you will not see it.  
This Epitaph is for Freedomguard.

In future honour of Freedomguard, i will try to make reference to one or more of his original characters in my fanfictions, to remain as a ghost of the man who in a way, made me the writer that i am today.

Rest in peace.


End file.
